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
He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it.
Interpretation
The quote questions the disdain some people express towards money, highlighting its essential role in life.
In this quote, W. Somerset Maugham reflects on the attitude some individuals have towards money, suggesting that their contempt may stem from a lack of personal experience with financial struggle. Maugham implies that those who criticize money might not fully understand its importance and the challenges that arise from living without it.
In practice
Use this quote in a discussion about the value of money in achieving goals.
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.
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.
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.
I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.
The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress.
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.
'Melancholy' is prettier than 'depression'; it connotes a kind of nocturnal grace. Makes one feel more innocently beleaguered.
The things of this world take up too much of my time, of which indeed I have too little left, to undertake anything like a reformation in religion.
It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But... it is better to be good than to be ugly.
I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my father, brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.
My real self wanders elsewhere, far away, wanders on and on invisibly and has nothing to do with my life.
And so it is they who, between them, give me all the reasons for believing in none.
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