The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
Any nation that thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will soon lose its freedom; and the ironical thing about it is that it will lose its ease and comfort too.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Prioritizing comfort over freedom ultimately leads to losing both.
This quote underscores the importance of valuing freedom above comfort. It suggests that a society or nation that prioritizes personal ease and security at the expense of liberties and democratic rights will ultimately find itself in a situation where it loses both, as the pursuit of comfort could lead to complacency and oppression.
Themes
FreedomComfortEaseNationSacrificeLiberty
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about civil rights, one could use this quote to emphasize the need for vigilance in protecting freedom.
More from W. Somerset Maugham
All quotes →Cronshaw stopped for a moment to drink. He had pondered for twenty years the problem whether he loved liquor because it made him talk or whether he loved conversation because it made him thirsty.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
Are you sure you can prevent yourself from falling in love one of these days? Such things do happen, you know, even to the most prudent men.' Simon gave him a strange, one might even have thought a hostile, look. I should tear it out of my heart as I'd wrench out of my mouth a rotten tooth.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
There in the mist, enormous, majestic, silent and terrible, stood the Great Wall of China. Solitarily, with the indifference of nature herself, it crept up the mountain side and slipped down to the depth of the valley.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
Similar quotes
I realized it for the first time in my life: there is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days, shining brightly, and we don't even know it.
Sue Monk KiddRead
Every true faith is infallible. It performs what the believing person hopes to find in it. But it does not offer the least support for the establishing of an objective truth. Here the ways of men divide. If you want to achieve peace of mind and happiness, have faith. If you want to be a disciple of truth, then search.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
It was too late - everything was too late. For years now he had dreamed the world away, basing his decisions upon emotions unstable as water.
F. Scott FitzgeraldRead
[Islam] is the dynamic conviction that a person's spiritual and worldly responsibilities are one and the same, that an individuals duty to the community is indistinguishable from his or her duty to God.
Reza AslanRead
Nothing is poorer than a truth expressed as it was thought. Committed to writing in such cases, it is not even a bad photograph. Truth wants to be startled abruptly, at one stroke, from her self-immersion, whether by uproar, music or cries for help.
Walter BenjaminRead
The truth of Zen is the truth of life, and life means to live, to move, to act, not merely to reflect.
D.T. SuzukiRead