W. Somerset Maugham

There was once a professor of law who said to his students. When you are fighting a case, if you have facts on your side hammer them into the jury, and if you have the law on your side hammer it into the judge. But if you have neither the facts nor the law, asked one of his listeners? Then hammer the hell into the table, answered the professor.

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

I do not believe they are right who say that the defects of famous men should be ignored. I think it is better that we should know them. Then, though we are conscious of having faults as glaring as theirs, we can believe that that is no hindrance to our achieving also something of their virtues.

The Riviera isn't only a sunny place for shady people.

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

Life is so largely controlled by chance that its conduct can be but a perpetual improvisation.

Tolerance is only another name for indifference.

We learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.

Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs.

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

The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.

The crown of literature is poetry.

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

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.

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.

Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.

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

Impropriety is the soul of wit.

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.

Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.

Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved.