Quotes from W. Somerset Maugham

The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.

It is unsafe to take your reader for more of a fool than he is.

One cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one's soul.

It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.

Most people are such fools that it is really no great compliment to say that someone is above the average.

Have common sense and stick to the point.

Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.

When you're eighteen your emotions are violent, but they're not durable.

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.

The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.

Success. I don't believe it has any effect on me. For one thing I always expected it.

It is a nuisance that knowledge can only be acquired by hard work.

Art for art's sake makes no more sense than gin for gin's sake.

Art is a manifestation of emotion, and emotion speaks a language that all may understand.

There is nothing so terrible as the pursuit of art by those who have no talent.

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.

An art is only great and significant if it is one that all may enjoy. The art of a clique is but a plaything.

I never spend more than one hour in a gallery. That is as long as one's power of appreciation persists.

Art is triumphant when it can use convention as an instrument of its own purpose.

Art should be appreciated with passion and violence, not with a tepid, depreciating elegance that fears the censoriousness of a common room.

Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art. ~Waddington

A man ought to work. That's what he's here for. That's how he contributes to the welfare of the community.

Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.

Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger.