793 Quotes by W. Somerset Maugham

It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.

We are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities of the conversation manual. Their brain is seething with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house.

Genius is talent provided with ideals.

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

Do you know that conversation is one of the greatest pleasures in life? But it wants leisure.

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

You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humour teaches tolerance, and the humorist, with a smile and perhaps a sigh, is more likely to shrug his shoulders than to condemn.

Women are often under the impression that men are much more madly in love with them than they really are.

The good traveler has the gift of surprise.