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
No woman is worth more than a fiver unless you're in love with her. Then she's worth all she costs you.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that a woman's value is subjective and can increase significantly when one is in love.
W. Somerset Maugham's quote captures the idea that love can change how we perceive the worth of a person, particularly in romantic relationships. While a woman's value may seem low in indifferent contexts, being in love elevates her worth beyond materialistic measures, emphasizing the emotional and subjective nature of relationships.
In practice
In a conversation about the complexities of love, this quote illustrates how feelings can alter perceptions of value.
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.
I do not love you-except because I love you; I go from loving to not loving you, from waiting to not waiting for you my heart moves from the cold into the fire.
Pure love and suspicion cannot dwell together: at the door where the latter enters, the former makes its exit.
Oh, what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love when it was made personal, merely personal feeling. This is what is the matter with us: we are bleeding at the roots because we are cut off from the earth and sun and stars. Love has become a grinning mockery because, poor blossom, we plucked it from its stem on the Tree of Life and expected it to keep on blooming in our civilized vase on the table.
Nobody dies from lack of sex. It's lack of love we die from.
sometimes I think I've got this hard kernel in my heart, and nothing much can get inside it. I doubt if I can really love anybody.
Sometimes I think my husband is so amazing that I don't know why he's with me. I don't know whether I'm good enough. But if I make him happy, then I'm everything I want to be.
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