Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by W. Somerset Maugham (British Novelist)

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

I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all. They are much more entertaining than half the novels that are written.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Books, Literature, Reading

Sincerity in society is like an iron girder in a house of cards.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Sincerity

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

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: Sin, Act

At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Party

The love that lasts the longest is the love that is never returned.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Love

Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate mother.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Mothers, Family

The crown of literature is poetry.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: One liners, Literature

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Reading

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.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Perfection

There is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Sex

We do not write as we want, but as we can.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Work, Realistic Expectations, Abilities, Acceptance, Talents

It’s very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Writers, Authors & Writing, Writing

Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage. He lives by make-believe.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Vanity, Truth

From the earliest times the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser than they, and before the young had discovered what nonsense this was they were old too, and it profited them to carry on the imposture.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Generations, Aging

We know our friends by their defects rather than their merits.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Friendship, Friends

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Success, Excellence

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

Common-sense appears to be only another name for the thoughtlessness of the unthinking. It is made of the prejudices of childhood, the idiosyncrasies of individual character and the opinion of the newspapers.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Common Sense

No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Christians, Christianity, Religion

Art for art’s sake makes no more sense than gin for gin’s sake.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Art

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.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Originality

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.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Politicians, Politics

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.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Mistakes

It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together in their highest perfection.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Creativity

Simplicity and naturalness are the truest marks of distinction.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Simplicity

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.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Explanation, Evil

The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Quotations

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 our future lives will be less afflicted.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Sin

Like all weak men, he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one’s mind.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Topics: Change

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