William Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) was a British novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. One of the most popular writers in English in the 20th century, he is noted for his clarity of style, cosmopolitan settings, skill in storytelling, and a keen understanding of human nature.
Born in Paris of Irish origin, Maugham was educated at King’s School, Canterbury, and read philosophy and literature at Heidelberg in Germany. He studied medicine, qualified as a surgeon at St Thomas’s Hospital in London. A year’s internship as an obstetrician in the London slums gave him the material for his first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897.)
In 1914, Maugham served first with a Red Cross unit in France, then as a secret agent in Geneva, and finally in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg,) attempting to prevent the outbreak of the Russian Revolution. In World War II, he served as a secret agent for the British.
Productive throughout a long life, Maugham is still regarded as having done his great work in four books: Of Human Bondage (1915,) a semi-autobiographical account of a young medical student’s painful progress toward maturity, The Moon and Sixpence (1919,) an account of an unconventional artist, suggested by the life of the French post-Impressionist artist Paul Gauguin, Cakes and Ale (1930,) the story of a famous novelist, which is thought to contain caricatures of novelists Thomas Hardy and Hugh Walpole, and The Razor’s Edge (1944,) the story of a young American war veteran’s quest for a satisfying way of life.
During his later years, Maugham primarily wrote essays. The Summing Up (1938) and A Writer’s Notebook (1949) explain Maugham’s philosophy of life as resigned atheism and a certain skepticism about the extent of man’s innate goodness and intelligence. His other works include essays on Goethe, Chekhov, Henry James, and Katherine Mansfield in Points of View (1958.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by W. Somerset Maugham
There is only one thing about which I am certain, and this is that there is very little about which one can be certain.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Doubt, Uncertainty
When you choose your friends, don’t be short-changed by choosing personality over character.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Character
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.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Reading
Like all weak men, he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one’s mind.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Change
We do not write as we want, but as we can.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Abilities, Talents, Work, Realistic Expectations, Acceptance
Now it is a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Sincerity in society is like an iron girder in a house of cards.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Sincerity
Common sense and good nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Common Sense
Genius is talent provided with ideals.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Talent
It is unfair to expect a politician to live in private up to the statements he makes in public.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Politicians, Politics
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.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Critics, Criticism
You know that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.
—W. Somerset Maugham
American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Perfection, Americans
If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that, if it is comfort or money it values more, it will lose that too
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Freedom, Laughter, Government, Nation
It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Criticism
The best style is the style you don’t notice.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Writing
I forget who it was that recommended men for their soul’s good to do each day two things they disliked… . It is a precept I have followed scrupulously: for every day I have got up and I have gone to bed.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Discipline
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.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Communication
There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Authors & Writing, Writing, Writers, Art
Now it is a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it.
—W. Somerset Maugham
People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Criticism
There is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. This is the type that most often writes about himself.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Authors & Writing
Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Habits, Excess
I knew I had no lyrical quality, a small vocabulary, little gift of metaphor. The original and striking simile never occurred to me. Poetic flights… were beyond my powers. On the other hand, I had an acute power of observation, and it seemed to me that I could see a great many things that other people missed. I could put down in clear terms what I saw… I knew that I should never write as well as I could wish, but I thought, with pains, that I could arrive at writing as well as my natural defects allowed.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Appreciation, Blessings, Gratitude
The passing moment is all we can be sure of; it is only common sense to extract its utmost value from it.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Act, Sin
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
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Forgiveness
We know our friends by their defects rather than their merits.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Friends, Friendship
Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Money
A good style should show no signs of effort. What is written should seem a happy accident.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Writing
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.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Love
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