Quotes from W. Somerset Maugham

It is unfair to expect a politician to live in private up to the statements he makes in public.

You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences.

Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.

What does democracy come down to? The persuasive power of slogans invented by wily self-seeking politicians.

From old habit, unconsciously he thanked God that he no longer believed in Him.

I don't know why it is that the religious never ascribe common sense to God.

A God that can be understood is no God. Who can explain the Infinite in words?

The Almighty can hardly be such a fool as the churches make out.

Men have ascribed to God imperfections that they would deplore in themselves.

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.

An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.

Dullness is the first requisite of a good husband.

A good story is obviously a difficult thing to invent, but its difficulty is a poor reason for despising it.

It must be that to govern a nation you need a specific talent and that this may very well exist without general ability.

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 great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.

In business sharp practice sometimes succeeds, but in art honesty is not only the best but the only policy.

The humorist has a good eye for the humbug; he does not always recognize the saint.

Imagination grows by exercise.

It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set.

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?

The crown of literature is poetry.

When you are young you take the kindness people show you as your right.

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.