18 Quotes by Somerset Maugham

Men seek but one thing in life - their pleasure.

He painted with the brain, and he could not help knowing that the only painting worth anything was done with the heart. (375)

Only the poet or the saint can water an asphalt pavement in the confident anticipation that lilies will reward his labour.

...it is well known that to praise someone whose rivalry you do not dread is often a very good way of putting a spoke in the wheel of someone whose rivalry you do.

Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment

The summer came upon the country like a conqueror.

If one puts aside the existence of God and the survival after life as too doubtful…one has to make up one’s mind as to the use of life. If death ends all, if I have neither to hope for good nor to fear evil, I must ask myself what I am here for, and how in these circumstances I must conduct myself. Now the answer is plain, but so unpalatable that most will not face it. There is no meaning for life, and [thus] life has no meaning.

[T]hat his cheating and his bitterness and his cruelty were the revolt of his will ... against a deep-rooted instinct of holiness, against a desire for God that terrified and yet obsessed him.

You're mistaken in thinking I'm unhappy. T have a great deal too much to do to think of you very often.