W. Somerset Maugham

W. Somerset Maugham

37 quotes

English playwright and author W. Somerset Maugham has a gift for language that makes complex ideas feel instantly clear. Celebrated for his plays, novels and short stories, W. Somerset Maugham brought that same intensity to the written and spoken word. Discover 44 of W. Somerset Maugham's most memorable quotes, ranging across Money, Love, Freedom, Age, and Truth. Among their most shared lines: "Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit out of it."

“There are two good things in life - freedom of thought and freedom of action.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Freedom

All Quotes by W. Somerset Maugham

“There are two good things in life - freedom of thought and freedom of action.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Freedom

“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.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Great

“Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Art

“The crown of literature is poetry.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Poetry

“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.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Home

“It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humour.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Beauty

“Only a mediocre person is always at his best.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Best

“Any nation that thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will soon lose its freedom and the ironical thing about it is that it will lose its ease and comfort too.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Freedom

“Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Age

“At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Newyears

“Death doesn't affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn't concern the dead because they have ceased to exist.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Death

“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.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Nature

“The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Love

“Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit out of it.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Good

“In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Women

“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 that it values more, it will lose that too.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Freedom

“When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Friendship

“Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Truth

“You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Humor

“Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Death