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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.

-W. Somerset Maugham

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You Know, There Are

W. Somerset Maugham

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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.

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We Do Not Write As We Want, But As We Can.

You Tend To Close Your Eyes To Truth, Beauty And Goodness Because They Give No Scope To Your Sense Of The Ridiculous.

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

No Woman Is Worth More Than A Fiver Unless You're In Love With Her. Then She's Worth All She Costs You.

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

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

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

I Could Have Forgiven It If He'd Fallen Desperately In Love With Someone And Gone Off With Her. I Should Have Thought That Natural. I Shouldn't Really Have Blamed Him. I Should Have Thought He Was Led Away. Men Are So Weak, And Women Are So Unscrupulous.

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

It Is An Illusion That Youth Is Happy, An Illusion Of Those Who Have Lost It.

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

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.

The Well Dressed Man Is He Whose Clothes You Never Notice

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

You Can Do Anything In This World If You Are Prepared To Take The Consequences.

Positive Thinking

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

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

I Can Imagine No More Comfortable Frame Of Mind For The Conduct Of Life Than A Humorous Resignation.

Great Writers Create; Writers Of Smaller Gifts Copy

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.

Unfortunately Sometimes One Can't Do What One Thinks Is Right Without Making Someone Else Unhappy.

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

The Audience Is A Very Curious Animal. It Is Shrewd Rather Than Intelligent. Its Mental Capacity Is Less Than That Of Its Most Intellectual Members.

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

Loving-kindness Is The Better Part Of Goodness. It Lends Grace To The Sterner Qualities Of Which This Consists.

The Riviera Isn't Only A Sunny Place For Shady People.

We Can None Of Us Step Into The Same River Twice, But The River Flows On And The Other River We Step Into Is Cool And Refreshing, Too

I'll Give You My Opinion Of The Human Race In A Nutshell... Their Heart's In The Right Place, But Their Head Is A Thoroughly Inefficient Organ.

The Average American Can Get Into The Kingdom Of Heaven Much More Easily Than He Can Get Into The Boulevard St. Germain.

It Must Be A Fault In Me That I Am Not Gravely Shocked At The Sins Of Others Unless They Personally Affect Me.

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.

He Is Not Famous. It May Be That He Never Will Be. It May Be That When His Life At Last Comes To An End He Will Leave No More Trace Of His Sojourn On Earth Than A Stone Thrown Into A River Leaves On The Surface Of The Water. But It May Be That The Way Of Life That He Has Chosen For Himself And The Peculiar Strength And Sweetness Of His Character May Have An Ever-growing Influence Over His Fellow Men So That, Long After His Death Perhaps, It May Be Realized That There Lived In This Age A Very Remarkable Creature.

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

The Ballet. I Saw In The Fugitive Beauty Of A Dancer's Gesture A Symbol Of Life. It Was Achieved At The Cost Of Unending Effort But, With All The Forces Of Gravity Against It, A Fleeting Poise In Mid-air, A Lovely Attitude Worthy To Be Made Immortal In A Bas-relief, It Was Lost As Soon As It Was Gained And There Remained No More Than The Memory Of An Exquisite Emotion. So Life, Lived Variously And Largely, Becomes A Work Of Art Only When Brought To Its Beautiful Conclusion And Is Reduced To Nothingness In The Moment When It Arrives At Perfection.

We Who Are Of Mature Age Seldom Suspect How Unmercifully And Yet With What Insight The Very Young Judge Us.

Follow Your Inclinations With Due Regard To The Policeman Round The Corner.

Are You Sure You Can Prevent Yourself From Falling In Love One Of These Days? Such Things Do Happen, You Know, Even To The Most Prudent Men.' Simon Gave Him A Strange, One Might Even Have Thought A Hostile, Look. I Should Tear It Out Of My Heart As I'd Wrench Out Of My Mouth A Rotten Tooth.

Falling In Love

Art Is Merely The Refuge Which The Ingenious Have Invented, When They Were Supplied With Food And Women, To Escape The Tediousness Of Life.

When I Was Young I Had An Elderly Friend Who Used Often To Ask Me To Stay With Him In The Country. He Was A Religious Man And He Read Prayers To The Assembled Household Every Morning. But He Had Crossed Out In Pencil All The Passages That Praised God. He Said That There Was Nothing So Vulgar As To Praise People To Their Faces And, Himself A Gentleman, He Could Not Believe That God Was So Ungentlemanly As To Like It.

Comedy Appeals To The Collective Mind Of The Audience And This Grows Fatigued; While Farce Appeals To A More Robust Organ, Their Collective Belly.

I've Always Been Interested In People, But I've Never Liked Them.

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.

The Prestige You Acquire By Being Able To Tell Your Friends That You Know Famous Men Proves Only That You Are Yourself Of Small Account.

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

What Was It In The Human Heart That Made You Despise A Man Because He Loved You?

Life Is So Largely Controlled By Chance That Its Conduct Can Be But A Perpetual Improvisation.

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

Any Society That Values Wealth Above Freedom Will Lose Its Freedom, And Will Ultimately Lose Its Wealth As Well

Why Did You Look At The Sunset?' Philip Answered With His Mouth Full: Because I Was Happy.

There Are Three Rules For Writing A Novel. Unfortunately, No One Knows What They Are.

You're Beginning To Dislike Me, Aren't You? Well, Dislike Me. It Doesn't Make Any Difference To Me Now.

Reverie Is The Groundwork Of Creative Imagination; It Is The Privilege Of The Artist That With Him It Is Not As With Other Men An Escape From Reality, But The Means By Which He Accedes To It.

I'm Only Twenty-five. If I've Made A Mistake I Have Time To Correct It.

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

I Thought It Was Only In Revealed Religion That A Mistranslation Improved The Sense.

I Did Not Believe Him Capable Of Love. That Is An Emotion In Which Tenderness Is An Essential Part, But Strickland Had No Tenderness Either For Himself Or For Others; There Is In Love A Sense Of Weakness, A Desire To Protect, An Eagerness To Do Good And To Give Pleasure--if Not Unselfishness, At All Events A Selfishness Which Marvellously Conceals Itself; It Has In It A Certain Diffidence.

No Affectation Of Peculiarity Can Conceal A Commonplace Mind.

I Can Only Guess That It Made The World He Went Back To...strangely Without Meaning. Though He Lived In It, Though He Even Enjoyed It, It Remained Utterly Remote. I Think It Had Lost Sense For Him. In His Heart Was The Reflection Of A Lovely Dream That He Could Never Quite Recall.

When Things Are At Their Worst, I Find Something Always Happens.

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.

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

Vaguely, As When You Are Studying A Foreign Language And Read A Page Which At First You Can Make Nothing Of, Till A Word Or A Sentence Gives You A Clue; And On A Sudden Suspicion, As It Were, Of The Sense Flashes Across Your Troubled Wits, Vaguely She Gained An Inkling Into The Workings Of Walter's Mind. It Was Like A Dark And Ominous Landscape Seen By A Flash Of Lightning And In A Moment Hidden Again By The Night. She Shuddered At What She Saw.

"do You Like Card Tricks?" "no, I Hate Card Tricks," I Answered. "well, I`ll Just Show You This One." He Showed Me Three.

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

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

There Was An Immeasurable Distance Between The Quick And The Dead: They Did Not Seem To Belong To The Same Species; And It Was Strange To Think That But A Little While Before They Had Spoken And Moved And Eaten And Laughed.

A Good Rule For Writers: Do Not Explain Overmuch.

The Crown Of Literature Is Poetry. It Is Its End And Aim. It Is The Sublimest Activity Of The Human Mind. It Is The Achievement Of Beauty And Delicacy. The Writer Of Prose Can Only Step Aside When The Poet Passes.

I Forget Who It Was That Recommended Men For Their Soul's Good To Do Each Day Two Things They Disliked: It Was A Wise Man, And It Is A Precept That I Have Followed Scrupulously; For Every Day I Have Got Up And I Have Gone To Bed.

Nothing More Predisposes Someone In Our Favour Than To Let Him Rob You A Little.

The Audience Is Not The Least Important Actor In The Play And If It Will Not Do Its Allotted Share The Play Falls To Pieces.

He Did Not Care If She Was Heartless, Vicious And Vulgar, Stupid And Grasping, He Loved Her. He Would Rather Have Misery With One Than Happiness With The Other.

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

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

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

An Author Spends Months Writing A Book, And Maybe Puts His Heart's Blood Into It, And Then It Lies About Unread Till The Reader Has Nothing Else In The World To Do.

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

Let Us Develop The Resources Of Our Land, Call Forth Its Powers, Build Up Its Institutions, Promote All Its Great Interests, And See Whether We Also, In Our Day And Generation, May Not Perform Something Worthy To Be Remembered.

Self Improvement

The World In General Doesn't Know What To Make Of Originality; It Is Startled Out Of Its Comfortable Habits Of Thought, And Its First Reaction Is One Of Anger.

I Now, Weak, Old, Diseased, Poor, Dying, Hold Still My Soul In My Hands, And I Regret Nothing.

The Love That Lasts Longest Is The Love That Is Never Returned.

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

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.

Loving-kindness Is The Better Part Of Goodness.

Loving Kindness

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

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.

It Is Clear That Men Accept An Immediate Pain Rather Than An Immediate Pleasure, But Only Because They Expect A Greater Pleasure In The Future. Often The Pleasure Is Illusory, But Their Error In Calculation Is No Refutation Of The Rule.

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.

Marriage Is A Very Good Thing, But I Think It's A Mistake To Make A Habit Out Of It.

No Married Man's Ever Made Up His Mind Until He's Heard What His Wife Has Got To Say About It.

It Might Be That To Surrender To Happiness Was To Accept Defeat, But It Was A Defeat Better Than Many Victories.

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.

If You'd Ever Had A Grown-up Daughter You'd Know That By Comparison A Bucking Steer Is Easy To Manage. And As To Knowing What Goes On Inside Her - Well, It's Much Better To Pretend You're The Simple, Innocent Old Fool She Almost Certainly Takes You For.

Only Mediocre People Are At The Best All The Time.

I Am Told That Today Rather More Than 60 Per Cent Of The Men Who Go To University Go On A Government Grant. This Is A New Class That Has Entered Upon The Scene. It Is The White-collar Proletariat. They Do Not Go To University To Acquire Culture But To Get A Job, And When They Have Got One, Scamp It. They Have No Manners And Are Woefully Unable To Deal With Any Social Predicament. Their Idea Of A Celebration Is To Go To A Public House And Drink Six Beers. They Are Mean, Malicious And Envious . They Are Scum.

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

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.

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

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

There Is Only One Way To Win Hearts And That Is To Make Oneself Like Unto Those Of Whom One Would Be Loved.

Evil Can Be Condoned Only If In The Beyond It Is Compensated By Good And God Himself Needs Immortality To Vindicate His Ways To Man.

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

The Artist Produces For The Liberation Of His Soul.

No Egoism Is So Insufferable As That Of The Christian With Regard To His Soul.

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

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.

There Is No Need For The Writer To Eat A Whole Sheep To Be Able To Tell You What Mutton Tastes Like. It Is Enough If He Eats A Cutlet. But He Should Do That.

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.

In Hollywood, The Women Are All Peaches. It Makes One Long For An Apple Occasionally.

People Talk Of Beauty Lightly, And Having No Feeling For Words, They Use That One Carelessly, So That It Loses Its Force; And The Thing It Stands For, Sharing Its Name With A Hundred Trivial Objects, Is Deprived Of Dignity. They Call Beautiful A Dress, A Dog, A Sermon; And When They Are Face To Face With Beauty Cannot Recognise It.

Life Wouldn’t Be Worth Living If I Worried Over The Future As Well As The Present. When Things Are At Their Worst I Find Something Always Happens.

I Travel Because I Like To Move From Place To Place, I Enjoy The Sense Of Freedom It Gives Me, It Pleases Me To Be Rid Of Ties, Responsibilities, Duties, I Like The Unknown; I Meet Odd People Who Amuse Me For A Moment And Sometimes Suggest A Theme For A Composition; I Am Often Tired Of Myself And I Have A Notion That By Travel I Can Add To My Personality And So Change Myself A Little. I Do Not Bring Back From The Journey Quite The Same Self That I Took

Perhaps It Would Have Been Possible To See In Him A New Prometheus...the Hero Who For The Good Of Mankind Exposes Himself To The Agonies Of The Damned...undaunted By Failure, By An Unceasing Effort Of Courage Holding Despair At Bay, Doggedly Persistent In The Face Of Self-doubt, Which Is The Artist's Bitterest Enemy.

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

The Mathematician Who After Seeing Phedre Asked: 'qu'est Que Ca Prouve?' Was Not Such A Fool As He Has Been Generally Made Out. No One Has Ever Been Able To Explain Why The Doric Temple Of Paestum Is More Beautiful Than A Glass Of Cold Beer Except By Bringing In Considerations That Have Nothing To Do With Beauty.

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.

No One Can Write A Best Seller By Trying To. He Must Write With Complete Sincerity; The Clichés That Make You Laugh, The Hackneyed Characters, The Well-worn Situations, The Commonplace Story That Excites Your Derision, Seem Neither Hackneyed, Well Worn Nor Commonplace To Him. ... The Conclusion Is Obvious: You Cannot Write Anything That Will Convince Unless You Are Yourself Convinced. The Best Seller Sells Because He Writes With His Heart's Blood.

You Can Never Know Enough About Your Characters

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.

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

Oh, It's Always The Same,' She Sighed, 'if You Want Men To Behave Well To You, You Must Be Beastly To Them; If You Treat Them Decently They Make You Suffer For It.

I Happen To Think We’ve Set Our Ideal On The Wrong Objects; I Happen To Think That The Greatest Ideal Man Can Set Before Himself Is Self-perfection.

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

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.

The Writer Is More Concerned To Know Than To Judge.

Sentimentality Is The Only Sentiment That Rubs You The Wrong Way.

Yet Magic Is No More Than The Art Of Employing Consciously Invisible Means To Produce Visible Effects. Will, Love And Imagination Are Magic Powers That Everyone Possesses; And Whoever Knows How To Develop Them To Their Fullest Extent Is A Magician. Magic Has But One Dogma, Namely, That The Seen Is The Measure Of The Unseen.

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.

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

On The Earth, Satellite Of A Star Speeding Through Space, Living Things Had Arisen Under The Influence Of Conditions Which Were Part Of The Planet's History; And As There Had Been A Beginning Of Life Upon It, So, Under The Influence Of Other Conditions, There Would Be An End: Man, No More Significant Than Other Forms Of Life, Had Come Not As The Climax Of Creation But As A Physical Reaction To The Environment.

Money Is Like A Sixth Sense Without Which You Cannot Make A Complete Use Of The Other Five.

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

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.

I'm Not Only My Spirit Buy My Body, And Who Can Decide How Much I, My Individual Self, Am Conditioned By The Accident Of My Body? Would Byron Have Been Byron But For His Club Foot, Or Dostoyevsky Dostoyevsky Without His Epilepsy?

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.

When Some Incident Has Shattered The Career You’ve Mapped Out For Yourself, A Folly, A Crime Or A Misfortune, You Mustn’t Think You’re Down And Out. It May Be A Stroke Of Luck, And When You Look Back Years Later You May Say To Yourself That You Wouldn’t For Anything In The World Exchange The New Life Disaster Has Forced Upon You For The Dull, Humdrum Existence You Would Have Led If Circumstances Hadn’t Intervened.

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.

Her Tears Were Partly Tears Of Happiness, For She Felt That The Strangeness Between Them Was Gone. She Loved Him Now With A New Love Because He Had Made Her Suffer.

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

A Woman Will Always Sacrifice Herself If You Give Her The Opportunity. It Is Her Favourite Form Of Self Indulgence.

Of All These The Richest In Beauty Is The Beautiful Life. That Is The Perfect Work Of Art. ~waddington

Freedom! That Was The Thought That Sung In Her Heart So That Even Though The Future Was So Dim, It Was Iridescent Like The Mist Over The River Where The Morning Sun Fell Upon It. Freedom! Not Only Freedom From A Bond That Irked, And A Companionship Which Depressed Her; Freedom, Not Only From The Death Which Had Threatened, But Freedom From The Love That Had Degraded Her; Freedom From All Spiritual Ties, The Freedom Of A Disembodied Spirit, And With Freedom, Courage , And A Valiant Unconcern For Whatever Was To Come.

If Nobody Spoke Unless He Had Something To Say, The Human Race Would Very Soon Lose The Use Of Speech.

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

I Would Sooner Read A Timetable Or A Catalog Than Nothing At All.

A Man Filled With Meat Turns His Back On The Dry Bones Of Political Doctrine. Fanatical Devotion To The Ruling Party Comes More Readily From The Materially Deprived At A Dinner Party One Should Eat Wisely But Not Too Well, And Talk Well But Not Too Wisely.

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.

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

I Am Told That Today Rather More Than 60 Per Cent Of The Men Who Go To The Universities Go On A Government Grant. This Is A New Class That Has Entered Upon The Scene ... They Are Scum.

The Complete Life, The Perfect Pattern, Includes Old Age As Well As Youth And Maturity. The Beauty Of The Morning And The Radiance Of Noon Are Good, But It Would Be A Very Silly Person Who Drew The Curtains And Turned On The Light In Order To Shut Out The Tranquillity Of The Evening. Old Age Has Its Pleasures, Which, Though Different, Are Not Less Than The Pleasures Of Youth.

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.

Sometimes A Man Hits Upon A Place To Which He Mysteriously Feels That He Belongs.

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.

Advice To First Year Medical Students: In Anatomy, It Is Better To Have Learned And Lost Than Never To Have Learned At All.

You Are Not Angry With People When You Laugh At Them. Humor Teaches Tolerance.

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

The Humorist Has A Good Eye For The Humbug; He Does Not Always Recognize The Saint.

The Artist Can Within Limits Make What He Likes Of His Life... It Is Only The Artist, And Maybe The Criminal, Who Can Make His Own.

Marco Polo Tells The Tale Of The Old Man In The Mountains And How He Recruits New Members To His Band Of Assassins By Means Of Drugs, Beautiful Women, Lush Gardens, And Religious Promises. The Unfortunate Thing About This World Is That The Good Habits Are Much Easier To Give Up Than The Bad Ones.

The Artist Produces For The Liberation Of His Soul. It Is His Nature To Create As It Is The Nature Of Water To Run Down The Hill.

The Essential Element Of Love Is A Belief In Its Own Eternity.

No Man In His Heart Is Quite So Cynical As A Well-bred Woman.

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

When Married People Don't Get On They Can Separate, But If They're Not Married It's Impossible. It's A Tie That Only Death Can Sever.

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

I Like Manual Labor. Whenever I've Got Waterlogged With Study, I've Taken A Spell Of It And Found It Spiritually Invigorating.

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

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.

Writing Is The Supreme Solace.

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

To Write Simply Is As Difficult As To Be Good.

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

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

I Think I Was A Little Disappointed In Her. I Expected Then People To Be More Of A Piece Than I Do Now, And I Was Distressed To Find So Much Vindictiveness In So Charming A Creature. I Did Not Realize How Motley Are The Qualities That Go To Make Up A Human Being. Now I Am Well Aware That Pettiness And Grandeur, Malice And Charity, Hatred And Love, Can Find Place Side By Side In The Same Human Heart.

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

For Men, As A Rule, Love Is But An Episode Which Takes Place Among The Other Affairs Of The Day, And The Emphasis Laid On It In Novels Gives It An Importance Which Is Untrue To Life. There Are Few Men To Whom It Is The Most Important Thing In The World, And They Are Not The Very Interesting Ones; Even Women, With Whom The Subject Is Of Paramount Interest, Have A Contempt For Them.

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.

Sherry, The Civilized Drink.

It's Asking A Great Deal That Things Should Appeal To Your Reason As Well As Your Sense Of The Aesthetic. - Of Human Bondage

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

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.

A Man Marries To Have A Home, But Also Because He Doesn't Want To Be Bothered With Sex And All That Sort Of Thing.

I Always Find It More Difficult To Say The Things I Mean Than The Things I Don't.

Do You Know That Conversation Is One Of The Greatest Pleasures In Life? But It Wants Leisure.

Genius Is Talent Provided With Ideals. Genius Starves While Talent Wears Purple And Fine Linen. The Man Of Genius Of Today Will Infifty Years' Time Be In Most Cases No More Than A Man Of Talent.

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

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.

He Knew That All Things Human Are Transitory And Therefore That It Must Cease One Day Or Another. He Looked Forward To That Day With Eager Longing. Love Was Like A Parasite In His Heart, Nourishing A Hateful Existence On His Life's Blood; It Absorbed His Existence So Intensely That He Could Take Pleasure In Nothing Else.

It Is Not True That Suffering Ennobles The Character; Happiness Does That Sometimes, But Suffering For The Most Part, Makes Men Petty And Vindictive.

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.

A Woman Can Forgive A Man For The Harm He Does Her...but She Can Never Forgive Him For The Sacrifices He Makes On Her Account.

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

The Life Force Is Vigorous. The Delight That Accompanies It Counter-balances All The Pains And Hardships That Confront Men. It Makes Life Worth Living.

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

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

If People Waited To Know One Another Before They Married, The World Wouldn't Be As Overpopulated As It Is Now.

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.

Beauty Is An Ecstasy; It Is As Simple As Hunger.

The Future Will One Day Be The Present And Will Seem As Unimportant As The Present Does Now.

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William Gurnall

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