Quotes from W. Somerset Maugham

Tolerance is another word for indifference.

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

Perfect is determined in shortened measures of time, not over long periods of time or lifetimes. It would be unnatural.

By the time an actor knows how to act any sort of part he is often too old to act any but a few.

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

Only mediocre people are at the best all the time.

I'm only twenty-five. If I've made a mistake I have time to correct it.

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.

There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.

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

No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul.

Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really affectionate mother.

The important thing was to love rather than to be loved.

The essential element of love is a belief in its own eternity.

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.

It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.

The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.

Writing is the supreme solace.

The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth.

It takes two to make a love affair and a mans meat is too often a woman's poison.

When you have loved as she has loved, you grow old beautifully.

The tragedy of love is indifference.

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.

Sentimentality is the only sentiment that rubs you the wrong way.