QuoteProject
When you're eighteen your emotions are violent, but they're not durable.
W. Somerset Maugham
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote reflects on the intensity and fleeting nature of emotions experienced at the age of eighteen.

W. Somerset Maugham observes that the emotions of an eighteen-year-old are often intense and passionate, yet these feelings are not long-lasting. This suggests that youthful exuberance can lead to overwhelming emotional experiences, but with time, those feelings may dissipate, highlighting the transient nature of youthful passion and the maturation process that comes with age.

Themes

EmotionsYouthIntensityPassionExperience

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a speech about the emotional development of teenagers.

More from W. Somerset Maugham

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
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

We are like boxers, one never knows how much longer one has
Clint EastwoodRead
I would die if I had to be confined. I don't want to feel that I'm missing out on experiencing as much as I can. For me, experiencing is knowing people all over the world and being able to photograph.
Mary Ellen MarkRead
We go on in our pleasures thinking they're going to last forever.
Billy GrahamRead
Don't be on your deathbed someday, having squandered your one chance at life, full of regret because you pursued little distractions instead of big dreams.
Derek SiversRead
It has been women who have breathed gentleness and care into the hard progress of humankind.
Queen Elizabeth IiRead
An unhatched egg is to me the greatest challenge in life.
E. B. WhiteRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.