Background Image

...

Unconsciously, Perhaps, We Treasure The Power We Have Over People By Their Regard For Our Opinion Of Them, And We Hate Those Upon Whom We Have No Such Influence.

-W. Somerset Maugham

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Unconsciously, Perhaps, We Treasure

W. Somerset Maugham

...

Unconsciously, Perhaps, We Treasure The Power We Have Over People By Their Regard For Our Opinion Of Them, And We Hate Those Upon Whom We Have No Such Influence.

Views: 6

Topic

More From W. Somerset Maugham

Things Were Easier For The Old Novelists Who Saw People All Of A Piece. Speaking Generally, Their Heroes Were Good Through And Through, Their Villains Wholly Bad.

What Mean And Cruel Things Men Can Do For The Love Of God.

Perfection Has One Grave Defect: It Is Apt To Be Dull.

It Is Salutary To Train Oneself To Be No More Affected By Censure Than By Praise.

Habits In Writing As In Life Are Only Useful If They Are Broken As Soon As They Cease To Be Advantageous.

When We Come To Judge Others It Is Not By Ourselves As We Really Are That We Judge Them, But By An Image That We Have Formed Of Ourselves From Which We Have Left Out Everything That Offends Our Vanity Or Would Discredit Us In The Eyes Of The World.

But What Is Criticism? Criticism Is Purely Destructive; Anyone Can Destroy, But Not Everyone Can Build Up.

Refecting On The High Divorce Rate In America As Contrasted With England "american Women Expect To Find In Their Husbands A Perfection That English Women Only Hope To Find In Their Butlers

You Will Have To Learn Many Tedious Things,...which You Will Forget The Moment You Have Passed Your Final Examination, But In Anatomy It Is Better To Have Learned And Lost Than Never To Have Learned At All.

There Are Men Whose Sense Of Humour Is So Ill Developed That They Still Bear A Grudge Against Copernicus Because He Dethroned Them From The Central Position In The Universe. They Feel It A Personal Affront That They Can No Longer Consider Themselves The Pivot Upon Which Turns The Whole Of Created Things.

There's No One As Transparent As The Person Who Thinks He's Devilish Deep.

How Can I Be Reasonable? To Me Our Love Was Everything And You Were My Whole Life. It Is Not Very Pleasant To Realize That To You It Was Only An Episode.

If Truth Is A Value It Is Because It Is True And Not Because It Is Brave To Speak It.

Make Him Laugh And He Will Think You A Trivial Fellow, But Bore Him In The Right Way And Your Reputation Is Assured.

Dying Is The Most Hellishly Boresome Experience In The World! Particularly When It Entails Dying Of 'natural Causes'.

People Do Tell A Writer Things That They Don't Tell Others. I Don't Know Why, Unless It Is That Having Read One Or Two Of His Books They Feel On Peculiarly Intimate Terms With Him; Or It May Be That They Dramatize Themselves And, Seeing Themselves As It Were As Characters In A Novel, Are Ready To Be As Open With Him As They Imagine The Characters Of His Invention Are.

Sometimes People Carry To Such Perfection The Mask They Have Assumed That In Due Course They Actually Become The Person They Seem.

Now The Answer ... Is Plain, But It Is So Unpalatable That Most Men Will Not Face It. There Is No Reason For Life And Life Has No Meaning.

It Is Pleasure That Lurks In The Practice Of Every One Of Your Virtues. Man Performs Actions Because They Are Good For Him, And When They Are Good For Other People As Well They Are Thought Virtuous: If He Finds Pleasure In Helping Others He Is Benevolent; If He Finds Pleasure In Working For Society He Is Public-spirited; But It Is For Your Private Pleasure That You Give Twopence To A Beggar As Much As It Is For My Private Pleasure That I Drink Another Whiskey And Soda. I, Less Of A Humbug Than You, Neither Applaud Myself For My Pleasure Nor Demand Your Admiration.

It Is Cruel To Discover One's Mediocrity Only When It Is Too Late. It Does Not Improve The Temper.

It Must Be That To Govern A Nation You Need A Specific Talent And That This May Very Well Exist Without General Ability.

The Great Man Is Too Often All Of A Piece; It Is The Little Man That Is A Bundle Of Contradictory Elements. He Is Inexhaustible. You Never Come To The End Of The Surprises He Has In Store For You.

A Soul Is A Troublesome Possession, And When Man Developed It He Lost The Garden Of Eden.

Well, You Know When People Are No Good At Anything Else They Become Writers.

I Have Always Been Convinced That If A Woman Once Made Up Her Mind To Marry A Man, Nothing But Instant Flight Could Save Him.

Has It Occurred To You That Transmigration Is At Once An Explanation And A Justification Of The Evil Of The World? If The Evils We Suffer Are The Result Of Sins Committed In Our Past Lives, We Can Bear Them With Resignation And Hope That If In This One We Strive Toward Virtue Out Future Lives Will Be Less Afflicted.

No Author Can Create A Character Out Of Nothing. He Must Have A Model To Give Him A Starting Point; But Then His Imagination Goes To Work, He Builds Him Up, Adding A Trait Here, A Trait There, Which His Model Did Not Possess.

The Trouble With Young Writers Is That They Are All In Their Sixties.

Truth Is Not Only Stranger Than Fiction, It Is More Telling. To Know That A Thing Actually Happened Gives It A Poignancy, Touches A Chord, Which A Piece Of Acknowledged Fiction Misses. It Is To Touch This Chord That Some Authors Have Done Everything They Could To Give You The Impression That They Are Telling The Plain Truth.

I'm Afraid You've Thought Me A Bigger Fool Than I Am.

Do You Absolutely Despise Me, Walter?" "no." He Hesitated And His Voice Was Strange. "i Despise Myself.

Excess On Occasion Is Exhilarating. It Prevents Moderation From Acquiring The Deadening Effect Of A Habit. It's A Funny Thing About Life; If You Refuse To Accept Anything But The Best, You Very Often Get It. Like All Weak Men He Laid An Exaggerated Stress On Not Changing One's Mind.

Perfection Is A Trifle Dull. It Is Not The Least Of Life's Ironies That This, Which We All Aim At, Is Better Not Quite Achieved.

What Makes Old Age Hard To Bear Is Not The Failing Of One's Faculties, Mental And Physical, But The Burden Of One's Memories.

I Have An Idea That The Only Thing Which Makes It Possible To Regard This World We Live In Without Disgust Is The Beauty Which Now And Then Men Create Out Of The Chaos. The Pictures They Paint, The Music They Compose, The Books They Write, And The Lives They Lead. Of All These The Richest In Beauty Is The Beautiful Life. That Is The Perfect Work Of Art.

To Bear Failure With Courage Is The Best Proof Of Character That Anyone Can Give.

There Are Men Who Are Possessed By An Urge So Strong To Do Some Particular Thing That They Can't Help Themselves, They've Got To Do It. They're Prepared To Sacrifice Everything To Satisfy Their Yearning.

In The Conduct Of Life We Make Use Of Deliberation To Justify Ourselves In Doing What We Want To Do.

I Don't Think That Women Ought To Sit Down At Table With Men. It Ruins Conversation And I'm Sure It's Very Bad For Them. It Puts Ideas In Their Heads, And Women Are Never At Ease With Themselves When They Have Ideas.

There Was Once A Professor Of Law Who Said To His Students. When You Are Fighting A Case, If You Have Facts On Your Side Hammer Them Into The Jury, And If You Have The Law On Your Side Hammer It Into The Judge. But If You Have Neither The Facts Nor The Law, Asked One Of His Listeners? Then Hammer The Hell Into The Table, Answered The Professor.

For Men And Women Are Not Only Themselves; They Are Also The Region In Which They Are Born, The City Apartment Or Farm In Which They Learnt To Walk, The Games They Played As Children, The Old Wives Tales They Overheard, The Food They Ate, The Schools They Attended, The Sports They Followed, The Poets They Read, And The God They Believed In. It Is All These Things That Have Made Them What They Are, And These Are The Things That You Can't Come To Know By Hearsay.

Death Doesn't Affect The Living Because It Has Not Happened Yet. Death Doesn't Concern The Dead Because They Have Ceased To Exist.

When I Read A Book I Seem To Read It With My Eyes Only, But Now And Then I Come Across A Passage, Perhaps Only A Phrase, Which Has A Meaning For Me, And It Becomes Part Of Me.

Illusions Are Like Umbrellas - You No Sooner Get Them Than You Lose Them, And The Loss Always Leaves A Little Painful Wound.

Beauty Is Also A Gift Of God, One Of The Most Rare And Precious, And We Should Be Thankful If We Are Happy Enough To Possess It And Thankful, If We Are Not, That Others Possess It For Our Pleasure.

Considering How Foolishly People Act And How Pleasantly They Prattle, Perhaps It Would Be Better For The World If They Talked More And Did Less.

In Business Sharp Practice Sometimes Succeeds, But In Art Honesty Is Not Only The Best But The Only Policy.

Clearly Much That Seemed Valid Seemed So Only Because He Had Been Taught It From Earliest Youth.

It Is Well To Remember That Grammar Is Common Speech Formulated.

We Have Long Passed The Victorian Era When Asterisks Were Followed After A Certain Interval By A Baby.

In Civilized Communities Men's Idiosyncrasies Are Mitigated By The Necessity Of Conforming To Certain Rules Of Behavior. Culture Is A Mask That Hides Their Faces.

Love Is Not Always Blind And There Are Few Things That Cause Greater Wretchedness Than To Love With All Your Heart Someone Who You Know Is Unworthy Of Love.

The Tragedy Of Love Is Indifference.

It Is Dangerous To Let The Public Behind The Scenes. They Are Easily Disillusioned And Then They Are Angry With You, For It Was The Illusion They Loved.

Behind The Scenes

To Acquire The Habit Of Reading Is To Construct For Yourself A Refuge From Almost All The Miseries Of Life.

Perhaps Some Deep-rooted Atavism Urges The Wanderer Back To Lands Which His Ancestors Left In The Dim Beginnings Of History. Sometimes A Man Hits Upon A Place To Which He Mysteriously Feels That He Belongs. Here Is The Home He Sought, And He Will Settle Amid Scenes That He Has Never Seen Before, Among Men He Has Never Known, As Though They Were Familiar To Him From His Birth. Here At Last He Finds Rest.

A Novelist Must Preserve A Childlike Belief In The Importance Of Things Which Common Sense Considers Of No Great Consequence.

D'you Call Life A Bad Job? Never! We've Had Our Ups And Downs, We've Had Our Struggles, We've Always Been Poor, But It's Been Worth It, Ay, Worth It A Hundred Times I Say When I Look Round At My Children.

What Do We Any Of Us Have But Our Illusions? And What Do We Ask Of Others But That We Be Allowed To Keep Them?

Culture Is Not Just An Ornament; It Is The Expression Of A Nation's Character, And At The Same Time It Is A Powerful Instrument To Mould Character. The End Of Culture Is Right Living.

It Needs A Good Deal Of Philosophy Not To Be Mortified By The Thought Of Persons Who Have Voluntarily Abandoned Everything That For The Most Of Us Makes Life Worth Living And Are Devoid Of Envy Of What They Have Missed. I Have Never Made Up My Mind Whether They Are Fools Or Wise Men.

When I Was Young I Was Amazed At Plutarch's Statement That The Elder Cato Began At The Age Of Eighty To Learn Greek. I Am Amazed No Longer. Old Age Is Ready To Undertake Tasks That Youth Shirked Because They Would Take Too Long.

When A Man's In Love, He At Once Makes A Pedestal Of The Ten Commandments And Stands On The Top Of Them With His Arms Akimbo. When A Woman's In Love She Doesn't Care Two Straws For Thou Shalt And Thou Shalt Not.

I've Met So Many People, Often The Scum Of The Earth, And Found Them, You Know, Quite Decent. I Am An Uncomfortable Stranger To Moral Indignation.

Scum Of The Earth

Cronshaw Stopped For A Moment To Drink. He Had Pondered For Twenty Years The Problem Whether He Loved Liquor Because It Made Him Talk Or Whether He Loved Conversation Because It Made Him Thirsty.

She Had A Pretty Gift For Quotation, Which Is A Serviceable Substitute For Wit.

Was It Necessary To Tell Me That You Wanted Nothing In The World But Me?' The Corners Of His Mouth Drooped Peevishly. Oh, My Dear, It's Rather Hard To Take Quite Literally The Things A Man Says When He's In Love With You.' Didn't You Mean Them?' At The Moment.

It Has Amazed Me That The Most Incongruous Traits Should Exist In The Same Person And, For All That, Yield A Plausible Harmony.

It's Always Difficult To Make Conversation With A Drunk, And There's No Denying It, The Sober Are At A Disadvantage With Him.

The Essence Of The Beautiful Is Unity In Variety.

The World Is Hard And Cruel. We Are Here None Knows Why, And We Go None Knows Whither. We Must Be Very Humble. We Must See The Beauty Of Quietness. We Must Go Through Life So Inconspicuously That Fate Does Not Notice Us. And Let Us Seek The Love Of Simple, Ignorant People. Their Ignorance Is Better Than All Our Knowledge. Let Us Be Silent, Content In Our Little Corner, Meek And Gentle Like Them. That Is The Wisdom Of Life.

The Common Idea That Success Spoils People By Making Them Vain, Egotistic And Self-complacent Is Erroneous; On The Contrary It Makes Them, For The Most Part, Humble, Tolerant And Kind.

Congratulations

Reserve Is An Artificial Quality That Is Developed In Most Of Us But As The Result Of Innumerable Rebuffs.

And I Have The Sunset, And The Tuscan Wine, And The White Teeth Of The Women In Rome. I Am A Traveler In Romance.

Art Is Triumphant When It Can Use Convention As An Instrument Of Its Own Purpose.

I Was A Stray Acquaintance Whom He Had Never Seem Before And Would Never See Again, A Wandered For A Moment Through His Monotonous Life, And Some Starved Impulse Left Him To Lay Bare His Soul. I Have In This Way Learned More About Men In A Night Than I Could If I Had Known Them For 10 Years. If You Are Interested In Human Nature, It Is One Of The Greatest Pleasures Of Travel.

We Americans... Like Change. It Is At Once Our Weakness And Our Strength.

A Dictator Must Fool All The People All The Time And There's Only One Way To Do That, He Must Also Fool Himself.

He Exulted In The Possession Of Himself Once More; He Realized How Much Of The Delight Of The World He Had Lost When He Was Absorbed In That Madness Which They Called Love; He Had Had Enough Of It; He Did Not Want To Be In Love Anymore If Love Was That.

There's Nothing The World Loves More Than A Ready-made Description Which They Can Hang On To A Man, And So Save Themselves All Trouble In Future.

I Prefer A Loose Woman To A Selfish One And A Wanton To A Fool.

One Can Be Very Much In Love With A Woman Without Wishing To Spend The Rest Of One's Life With Her.

Remember That It Is Nothing To Do Your Duty, That Is Demanded Of You And Is No More Meritorious Than To Wash Your Hands When They Are Dirty; The Only Thing That Counts Is The Love Of Duty; When Love And Duty Are One, Then Grace Is In You And You Will Enjoy A Happiness Which Passes All Understanding.

The Author Always Loads His Dice, But He Must Never Let The Reader See That He Has Done So, And By The Manipulation Of His Plot, He Can Engage The Reader's Attention So That He Does Not Perceive The Violence That Has Been Done To Him.

Perfect Is Determined In Shortened Measures Of Time, Not Over Long Periods Of Time Or Lifetimes. It Would Be Unnatural.

She Had No Mercy. He Looked At Her Neck And Thought How He Would Like To Jab It With The Knife He Had For His Muffin. He Knew Enough Anatomy To Make Pretty Certain Of Getting The Carotid Artery. And At The Same Time He Wanted To Cover Her Pale, Thin Face With Kisses.

Words Have Weight, Sound And Appearance; It Is Only By Considering These That You Can Write A Sentence That Is Good To Look At And Good To Listen To.

The Normal Is What You Find But Rarely. The Normal Is An Ideal. It Is A Picture That One Fabricates Of The Average Characteristics Of Men, And To Find Them All In A Single Man Is Hardly To Be Expected.

The Humour Of Dostoievsky Is The Humour Of A Barloafer Who Ties A Kettle To A Dog's Tail.

People Ask For Criticism, But They Only Want Praise.

The Great American Novel Has Not Only Already Been Written, It Has Already Been Rejected.

Perhaps The Most Important Use Of Money - It Saves Time. Life Is So Short, And There's So Much To Do, One Can't Afford To Waste A Minute; And Just Think How Much You Waste, For Instance, In Walking From Place To Place Instead Of Going By Bus And In Going By Bus Instead Of By Taxi.

To Write Simply Is As Difficult As To Be Good.

You Can Never Know Enough About Your Characters

It Requires The Feminine Temperament To Repeat The Same Thing Three Times With Unabated Zest.

When She Liked Anyone It Was Quite Natural For Her To Go To Bed With Him. She Never Thought Twice About It. It Was Not Vice; It Wasn't Lasciviousness; It Was Her Nature. She Gave Herself As Naturally As The Sun Gives Heat Or The Flowers Their Perfume. It Was A Pleasure To Her And She Liked To Give Pleasure To Others.

You Know, The Philistines Have Long Since Discarded The Rack And Stake As A Means Of Suppressing The Opinions They Feared: They've Discovered A Much More Deadly Weapon Of Destruction -- The Wisecrack.

We Do Not Write Because We Want To; We Write Because We Have To.

Have Common Sense And Stick To The Point.

Women's Hearts Are Like Old China, None The Worse For A Break Or Two.

But There Are People Who Take Salt With Their Coffee. They Say It Gives A Tang, A Savour, Which Is Peculiar And Fascinating. In The Same Way There Are Certain Places, Surrounded By A Halo Of Romance, To Which The Inevitable Disillusionment You Experience On Seeing Them Gives A Singular Spice. You Had Expected Something Wholly Beautiful And You Get An Impression Which Is Infinitely More Complicated Than Any That Beauty Can Give You. It Is The Weakness In The Character Of A Great Man Which May Make Him Less Admirable But Certainly More Interesting. Nothing Had Prepared Me For Honolulu.

It Is An Illusion That Youth Is Happy, An Illusion Of Those Who Have Lost It; But The Young Know They Are Wretched For They Are Full Of The Truthless Ideals Which Have Been Instilled In Them, And Each Time They Come Into Contact With The Real, They Are Bruised And Wounded.

[money] Is The String With Which A Sardonic Destiny Directs The Motions Of Its Puppets.

Only Mediocre People Are At The Best All The Time.

I Want A Girl Because I Want To Bring Her Up So That She Shan't Make The Mistakes I've Made. When I Look Back Upon The Girl I Was I Hate Myself. But I Never Had A Chance. I'm Going To Bring Up My Daughter So That She's Free And Can Stand On Her Own Feet. I´m Not Going To Bring A Child Into The World, And Love Her, And Bring Her Up, Just So That Some Man May Want To Sleep With Her So Much That He's Willing To Provide Her With Board And Lodging For The Rest Of Her Life.

It Must Be That There Is Something Naturally Absurd In A Sincere Emotion, Though Why There Should Be I Cannot Imagine, Unless It Is That Man, The Ephemeral Inhabitant Of An Insignificant Planet, With All His Pain And All His Striving Is But A Jest In An Eternal Mind.

Art, If It Is To Be Reckoned As One Of The Great Values Of Life, Must Teach Man Humility, Tolerance, Wisdom And Magnanimity. The Value Of Art Is Not Beauty, But Right Action.

A Good Story Is Obviously A Difficult Thing To Invent, But Its Difficulty Is A Poor Reason For Despising It.

There Is No Object To Life. To Nature Nothing Matters But The Continuation Of The Species.

Writing Is A Wholetime Job: No Professional Writer Can Afford Only To Write When He Feels Like It.

In The Country The Darkness Of Night Is Friendly And Familiar, But In A City, With Its Blaze Of Lights, It Is Unnatural, Hostile And Menacing. It Is Like A Monstrous Vulture That Hovers, Biding Its Time.

As Lovers, The Difference Between Men And Women Is That Women Can Love All Day Long, But Men Only At Times.

You Know, There Are Two Good Things In Life, Freedom Of Thought And Freedom Of Action. In France You Get Freedom Of Action: You Can Do What You Like And Nobody Bothers, But You Must Think Like Everybody Else. In Germany You Must Do What Everybody Else Does, But You May Think As You Choose. They're Both Very Good Things. I Personally Prefer Freedom Of Thought. But In England You Get Neither: You're Ground Down By Convention. You Can't Think As You Like And You Can't Act As You Like. That's Because It's A Democratic Nation. I Expect America's Worse.

All The Words I Use In My Stories Can Be Found In The Dictionary-it's Just A Matter Of Arranging Them Into The Right Sentences.

It Takes Two To Make A Love Affair And A Mans Meat Is Too Often A Woman's Poison.

Few Misfortunes Can Befall A Boy Which Bring Worse Consequence Than To Have A Really Affectionate Mother.

The Subjunctive Mood Is In Its Death Throes, And The Best Thing To Do Is To Put It Out Of Its Misery As Soon As Possible.

The Officers Saluted As She Passed And Gravely Bowed. They Walked Back Across The Courtyard And Got Into Their Chairs. She Saw Waddington Light A Cigarette. A Little Smoke Lost In The Air, That Was The Life Of A Man.

People Who Ask For Your Criticism Want Only Praise.

First, Cut Out All The Wisdom, Then Cut Out All The Adjectives.

He Found That It Was Easy To Make A Heroic Gesture, But Hard To Abide By Its Results.

To Bear Failure With Courage Is The Best Proof Of Character That Anyone Can Give... You Will Find That People Forget The Failures Of Others Very Quickly.... My Last Piece Of Advice Is Not To Let Anyone See Your Mortification, But Whatever You Fancy People Are Saying About You To Go On With Your Ordinary Life As Though Nothing Unpleasant Had Happened To You.

The Drama Is Make-believe. It Does Not Deal With Truth But With Effect.

Man Has Always Sacrificed Truth To His Vanity, Comfort And Advantage. He Lives Not By Truth But By Make-believe.

We Are Not The Same Persons This Year As Last; Nor Are Those We Love. It Is A Happy Chance If We, Changing, Continue To Love A Changed Person.

I [death] Was Astonished To See Him In Baghdad, For I Had An Appointment With Him Tonight In Samarra.

It Has Been Said That Good Prose Should Resemble The Conversation Of A Well-bred Man.

By The Time An Actor Knows How To Act Any Sort Of Part He Is Often Too Old To Act Any But A Few.

It Is Astonishing How Many Books I Find There Is No Need For Me To Read At All.

If You Want To Eat Well In England, Eat Three Breakfasts.

Never Pause Unless You Have A Reason For It, But When You Pause, Pause As Long As You Can.

The Arguments For Immortality, Weak When You Take Them One By One, Are No More Cogent When You Take Them Together... For My Part, I Cannot See How Consciousness Can Persist When Its Physical Basis Has Been Destroyed, And I Am Too Sure Of The Interconnection Of My Body And My Mind To Think That Any Survival Of My My Consciousness Apart From My Body Would Be In Any Sense A Survival Of Myself.

When People Say They Do Not Care What Others Think Of Them, For The Most Part They Deceive Themselves. Generally They Mean Only That They Will Do As They Choose, In The Confidence That No One Will Know Their Vagaries; And At The Utmost Only That They Are Willing To Act Contrary To The Opinion Of The Majority Because They Are Supported By The Approval Of Their Neighbours. It Is Not Difficult To Be Unconventional In The Eyes Of The World When Your Unconventionality Is But The Convention Of Your Set.

If You Don't Change Your Beliefs, Your Life Will Be Like This Forever. Is That Good News?

The Trouble Is That Thinking Looks Like Loafing. Who Wants To Pay People For Daydreaming?

A Writer Need Not Devour A Whole Sheep In Order To Know What Mutton Tastes Like, But He Must At Least Eat A Chop. Unless He Gets His Facts Right, His Imagination Will Lead Him Into All Kinds Of Nonsense, And The Facts He Is Most Likely To Get Right Are The Facts Of His Own Experience.

A Mother Only Does Her Children Harm If She Makes Them The Only Concern Of Her Life.

It Was Like Making A Blunder At A Party; There Was Nothing To Do About It, It Was Dreadfully Mortifying, But It Showed A Lack Of Sense To Ascribe Too Much Importance To It.

Tolerance Is Another Word For Indifference.

But I Am Not Sure It Would Contain Any Short Stories. For The Short Story Is A Minor Art, And It Must Content Itself With Moving, Exciting And Amusing The Reader. ...i Do Not Think That There Is Any (short Story) That Will Give The Reader That Thrill, That Rapture, That Fruitful Energy Which Great Art Can Produce.

There Is Only One Thing About Which I Am Certain, And This Is That There Is Very Little About Which One Can Be Certain

Art Should Be Appreciated With Passion And Violence, Not With A Tepid, Depreciating Elegance That Fears The Censoriousness Of A Common Room.

Excess On Occasion Is Exhilarating. It Prevents Moderation From Acquiring The Deadening Effect Of A Habit.

Everyone Had Some Defect, Or Body Or Of Mind: He Thought Of All The People He Had Known (the Whole World Was Like A Sick House And There Was No Rhyme Or Reason In It), He Saw A Long Procession, Deformed In Body, Warped In Mind, Some With Illness Of The Flesh, Weak Hearts Or Weak Lungs, And Some With Illness Of The Spirit, Languor Of Will, Or Craving For Liquor. At That Moment He Felt A Holy Compassion For Them All. …the Words Of The Dying God Crossed His Memory: Forgive Them, For They Know Not What They Do.

Old Age Has Its Pleasures, Which, Though Different, Are Not Less Than The Pleasures Of Youth.

She Loved Three Things — A Joke, A Glass Of Wine, And A Handsome Man.

Great Writers Create; Writers Of Smaller Gifts Copy

The Great Critic … Must Be A Philosopher, For From Philosophy He Will Learn Serenity, Impartiality, And The Transitoriness Of Human Things.

It Does The Heart Good To Look At You.

The Last Words He Said To Me When I Bade Him Good-night Were: Tell Amy It's No Good Coming After Me. Anyhow, I Shall Change My Hotel, So She Wouldn't Be Able To Find Me.' My Own Impression Is That She's Well Rid Of You,' I Said. My Dear Fellow, I Only Hope You'll Be Able To Make Her See It. But Women Are Very Unintelligent.

It Is A Nuisance That Knowledge Can Only Be Acquired By Hard Work.

So Long As Some Are Strong And Some Are Weak, The Weak Will Be Driven To The Wall.

Some Of Us Look For The Way In Opium And Some In God, Some Of Us In Whiskey And Some In Love. It Is All The Same Way And It Leads Nowhither.

She Says It's Really Not Very Flattering To Her That The Women Who Fall In Love With Her Husband Are So Uncommonly Second-rate.

Falling In Love

No Action Is In Itself Good Or Bad, But Only Such According To Convention.

As We Grow Older We Become More Conscious Of The Complexity, Incoherence, And Unreasonableness Of Human Beings; This Indeed Is The Only Excuse That Offers For The Middle-aged Or Elderly Writer Whose Thoughts Should More Properly Be Turned To Graver Matters, Occupying Himself With The Trivial Concerns Of Imaginary People.

Occupy Yourself

Most People Are Such Fools That It Is Really No Great Compliment To Say That Someone Is Above The Average.

I Do Not Think You Want Too Much Sincerity In Society. It Would Be Like An Iron Girder In A House Of Cards.

A Woman May Be As Wicked As She Likes, But If She Isn't Pretty It Won't Do Her Much Good.

Dullness Is The First Requisite Of A Good Husband.

The Important Thing Was To Love Rather Than To Be Loved.

I Never Met An Author Who Admitted That People Did Not Buy His Book Because It Was Dull.

For My Part I Cannot Believe In A God Who Is Angry With Me Because I Do Not Believe In Him. I Cannot Believe In A God Who Is Less Tolerant Than I. I Cannot Believe In A God Who Has Neither Humour Nor Common Sense.

From Old Habit, Unconsciously He Thanked God That He No Longer Believed In Him.

An Art Is Only Great And Significant If It Is One That All May Enjoy. The Art Of A Clique Is But A Plaything.

Our Natural Egoism Leads Us To Judge People By Their Relations To Ourselves. We Want Them To Be Certain Things To Us, And For Us That Is What They Are; Because The Rest Of Them Is No Good To Us, We Ignore It.

There Are Directors Who Desire To Be Artistic. It Is Pathetic To Compare The Seriousness Of Their Aim With The Absurdity Of Their Attainment.

I Wish I Could Make You See How Much Fuller The Life I Offer You Is Than Anything You Have A Conception Of. I Wish I Could Make You See How Exciting The Life Of The Spirit Is And How Rich In Experience. It's Illimitable. It's Such A Happy Life. There's Only One Thing Like It, When You're Up In A Plane By Yourself, High, High, And Only Infinity Surrounds You. You're Intoxicated By The Boundless Space.

Old Age Is Ready To Undertake Tasks That Youth Shirked Because They Would Take Too Long.

The Only Important Thing In A Book Is The Meaning That It Has For You.

I Don't Know Why It Is That The Religious Never Ascribe Common Sense To God.

Man's Desire For The Approval Of His Fellows Is So Strong, His Dread Of Their Censure So Violent, That He Himself Has Brought His Enemy (conscience) Within His Gates; And It Keeps Watch Over Him, Vigilant Always In The Interests Of Its Master To Crush Any Half-formed Desire To Break Away From The Herd.

Only A Mediocre Person Is Always At His Best.

If It Is Necessary Sometimes To Lie To Others, It Is Always Despicable To Lie To Oneself.

There Are Few Things So Pleasant As A Picnic Eaten In Perfect Comfort.

A Man Who Is A Politician At Forty Is A Statesman At Three Score And Ten. It Is At This Age, When He Would Be Too Old To Be A Clerk Or A Gardener Or A Police-court Magistrate, That He Is Ripe To Govern A Country.

If You Can Tell Stories, Create Characters, Devise Incidents, And Have Sincerity And Passion, It Doesn't Matter A Damn How You Write.

There Is No Explanation For Evil. It Must Be Looked Upon As A Necessary Part Of The Order Of The Universe. To Ignore It Is Childish, To Bewail It Senseless.

I Daresay One Profits More By The Mistakes One Makes Off One's Own Bat Than By Doing The Right Thing On Somebody's Else Advice.

I Wonder How Anyone Can Have The Face To Condemn Others When He Reflects Upon His Own Thoughts.

Failure Make People Bitter And Cruel. Success Improves The Character Of The Man.

Each One Of Us Is Alone In The World. He Is Shut In A Tower Of Brass, And Can Communicate With His Fellows Only By Signs, And The Signs Have No Common Value, So That Their Sense Is Vague And Uncertain. We Seek Pitifully To Convey To Others The Treasures Of Our Heart, But They Have Not The Power To Accept Them, And So We Go Lonely, Side By Side But Not Together, Unable To Know Our Fellows And Unknown By Them.

At A Dinner Party One Should Eat Wisely But Not Too Well, And Talk Well But Not Too Wisely.

It's A Funny Thing About Life; If You Refuse To Accept Anything But The Best, You Very Often Get It.

She Plunged Into A Sea Of Platitudes, And With The Powerful Breast Stroke Of A Channel Swimmer Made Her Confident Way Towards The White Cliffs Of The Obvious.

Beauty Is Something Wonderful And Strange That The Artist Fashions Out Of The Chaos Of The World In The Torment Of His Soul.

The Secret Of Play-writing Can Be Given In Two Maxims: Stick To The Point, And, Whenever You Can, Cut.

I Don't Understand Anything. Life Is So Strange. I Feel Like Some One Who's Lived All His Life By A Duck-pond And Suddenly Is Shown The Sea. It Makes Me A Little Breathless, And Yet It Fills Me With Elation. I Don't Want To Die, I Want To Live. I'm Beginning To Feel A New Courage. I Feel Like One Of Those Old Sailors Who Set Sail For Undiscovered Seas And I Think My Soul Hankers For The Unknown.

The Ideal Has Many Names, And Beauty Is But One Of Them.

Self-control Might Be As Passionate And As Active As The Surrender To Passion.

Every Production Of An Artist Should Be The Expression Of An Adventure Of His Soul.

Love Is Only A Dirty Trick Played On Us To Achieve Continuation Of The Species.

Often The Best Way To Overcome Desire Is To Satisfy It.

There Is Nothing So Degrading As The Constant Anxiety About One's Means Of Livelihood.

It Is Unfair To Expect A Politician To Live In Private Up To The Statements He Makes In Public.

The Writer Is More Concerned To Know Than To Judge.

I Am Afraid Of People With Too Much Charm. They Devour You. In The End You Are Made A Sacrifice To The Exercise Of Their Fascinating Gift And Their Insincerity.

The Ideas For Stories That Thronged My Brain Would Not Let Me Rest Till I Had Got Rid Of Them By Writing Them.

You Know What The Critics Are. If You Tell The Truth They Only Say You're Cynical And It Does An Author No Good To Get A Reputation For Cynicism.

In Heaven, When The Blessed Use The Telephone They Will Say What They Have To Say And Not A Word Besides.

Trending Author

Taylor Hackford

Category