The unfortunate thing about this world is that good habits are so much easier to give up than bad ones.
– W. Somerset Maugham
Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.
– W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage
The love that lasts the longest is the love that is never returned.
– W. Somerset Maugham
We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.
– W. Somerset Maugham
If 50 million people say something foolish, it is still foolish.
– W. Somerset Maugham
A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her…but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account.
– W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence
I don’t think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.
– W. Somerset Maugham
If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself.
– W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
To bear failure with courage is the best proof of character that anyone can give.
– W. Somerset Maugham
People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.
– W. Somerset Maugham
It’s a very funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
– W. Somerset Maugham
Only a mediocre person is always at his best.
– W. Somerset Maugham
You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences.
– W. Somerset Maugham
One cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one’s soul.
– W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.
– W. Somerset Maugham
If nobody spoke unless he had something to say, the human race would very soon lose the use of speech.
– W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
There is no cruelty greater than a woman’s to a man who loves her and whom she does not love; she has no kindness then, no tolerance even, she has only an insane irritation.
– W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence
It wasn’t until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say “I don’t know.
– W. Somerset Maugham
There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
– W. Somerset Maugham
If a man hasn’t what’s necessary to make a woman love him, it’s his fault, not hers.
– W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
It’s no use crying over spilt milk, because all of the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.
– W. Somerset Maugham
Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.
– W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence
Women are constantly trying to commit suicide for love, but generally they take care not to succeed.
– W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence
Unfortunately sometimes one can’t do what one thinks is right without making someone else unhappy.
– W. Somerset Maugham
Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.
– W. Somerset Maugham
I’ll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell… their heart’s in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ.
– W. Somerset Maugham
I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don’t.
– W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
One can be very much in love with a woman without wishing to spend the rest of one’s life with her.
– W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil