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A perfectly decent fellow may be driven by circumstances to commit a crime and if he's found out he's punished; but he may very well remain a perfectly decent fellow.


W.Somerset Maugham

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You seem a decent fellow," answere...
WILLIAM GOLDMAN What I say is that, if a man really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow.
A.A. MILNE Every time hes supposed to be here, hes showed up,
BRENDA JONES If you only write when inspired, you may be a fairly decent poet, but you'll never be a novelist.
NEIL GAIMAN A decent invention may be somewhat like a flower; it'll take a decent amount of time for the idea to...
BRANDON SEEDORFF A man is worked upon by what he works on. He may carve out his circumstances, but his circumstances ...
FREDERICK DOUGLASS Good heavens, I suppose a man may eat his own muffins in his own garden."
"But you have just sa...
OSCAR WILDE It may be slow, but it's perfectly usable.
KEVIN MCGEHEE Nobody out there can say that if the state passed a hate-crime law any crime would decrease. People ...
GAYLE RUZICKA God is always on time, it may not be the time you are expecting, but hes on time. Just like he said ...
ARTHLENE LAUDAT LAWRENCE Hes doing better than what we thought.
JAMIE KING Hes the smartest dog Ive ever had,
PETER GOULD On the facts thus far, the president has a decent argument that he acted lawfully. There's also a de...
CASS SUNSTEIN However degraded or wretched a fellow mortal may be, he is still a member of our common species
SENECA If this man had not twelve thousand a year, he would be a very stupid fellow.
JANE AUSTEN My brother went to New Orleans when he was 19, ... Hes 72 now.
BARBARA UPTON How lucky I am to have known somebody and something that saying goodbye to is so damned awful.
EVANS G. VALENS I've always found paranoia to be a perfectly defensible position.
PAT CONROY Hes ready to go every morning. He runs right over to the cruiser,
PETER GOULD Desire for approval and recognition is a healthy motive, but the desire to be acknowledged as better...
ALBERT EINSTEIN We must learn which ceremonies may be breached occasionally at our convenience and which ones may ne...
AMY VANDERBILT He was well known as a jolly and caring fellow.
DALE GOODWIN One is a great deal less anxious if one feels perfectly free to be anxious, and the same may be said...
ALAN W. WATTS What may appear to be the wrong way by other people's standards may indeed be the perfectly inspired...
LINDA CULL He excels in wheeling and dealing - I'm sure he'll manage the parliament. He is an utterly decent ma...
HAMID KARZAI No one will remember the kick in the balls if hes bleeding everywhere...
MIKE GRIST If we all took a minute to reflect upon the wrong we do we would be quite surprised or shocked.Inste...
GARY F EVANS... A very tough game against a decent Jamaican side that played very well today.
IAN BRIDGE Human beings may be miserable specimens, in the main, but we can learn, and, through learning, becom...
ORSON SCOTT CARD [Senior Rob Hudson sustained his good form with a 3-under par 33 to earn medalist honors for the var...
ALEX ADAMS No one will remember the kick in the balls if hes bleeding everywhere...
NATHAN ELMO MELO Somewhere deep down there's a decent man in me, he just can't be found.
EMINEM I may not be the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick the smartest people to do busines...
ZIAD K. ABDELNOUR I think one can achieve a very pleasant lifestyle by treating human beings, fellow human beings, ver...
RENE RIVKIN its almost as if he was raised by wolves, but wolves who knew the value of a decent education.
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CHRISTOPHER ROSENBERRY I'd find the fellow who lost it, and, if he was poor, I'd return it. [When asked what he would do if...
YOGI BERRA He has been a decent player in the past...but things have not worked out here.
ALAN VEST It may seem a hard task to condemn fellow creatures to long years of confinement in prison, but it i...
THOMAS MELLON The only crime, if any, that may have been committed in these circumstances is the perpetration of a...
MICHAEL GRANT For where there is true love, a man is neither out of measure lifted up by prosperity, nor cast down...
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PETER WESSEL ZAPFFE The market is fragmented so consolidation makes sense and long-term it may be worth paying a decent ...
JOHN LAWSON If they're somewhat decent and tall, they tend to get gobbled up by a bigger classification.
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OM BENIWAL People live for eating,but I eat for survive
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BASTIEN RIPOLL My dear fellow, the way you flirt with Gwendolen is perfectly disgraceful. It is almost as disgracef...
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GRAEME SMITH Religious leaders are supposed to be that and he seems like a decent-looking guy.
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A.A. MILNE He told me that he had a girlfriend. He wasn't a bit worried. He was a very charming fellow.
JIM KENNEDY If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how t...
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N. R. NARAYANA MURTHY The treatise found that he was perfectly within his rights to use them.
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EDDIE KENNEALLY Every man has been brought up with the idea that decent women don't pop in and out of bed; he has al...
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APURVA GAGLANI If you commit a crime, you're guilty.
RUSH LIMBAUGH If that a pearl may in a toad's head dwell, And may be found too in an oyster shell.
JOHN BUNYAN Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT You may lose by it now and then, but it will be a loss well gained if you do.
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W.SOMERSET MAUGHAM People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You're beginning to dislike me, aren't you? Well, dislike me. It doesn't make any difference to me n...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perfection is what American women expect to find in their husbands... but English women only hope to...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradic...
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now.
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You know that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's always difficult to make conversation with a drunk, and there's no denying it, the sober are at...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is er...
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is er...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Men seek but one thing in life - their pleasure.
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM A mother only does her children harm if she makes them the only concern of her life.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is well to remember that grammar is common speech formulated
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM All important persons have about them someone in a subordinate position who has their ear. These dep...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Unfortunately sometimes one can't do what one thinks is right without making someone else unhappy.
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Tradition is a guide and not a jailer
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the ba...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get...
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WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM A bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, he told her, to which she retorted that a proverb was ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
W SOMERSET MAUGHAM How can I be reasonable? To me our love was everything and you were my whole life. It is not very pl...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.
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WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Truth is not only stranger than fiction, it is more telling. To know that a thing actually happened ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill...
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Common sense and good nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the ...
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM If 50 million people say something foolish, it is still foolish.
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It requires the feminine temperament to repeat the same thing three times with unabated zest.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It was like making a blunder at a party; there was nothing to do about it, it was dreadfully mortify...
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WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Love is only the dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.
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WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very silly person who...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know the...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.
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WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The value of art is not beauty, but right action
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WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is pleasure that lurks in the practice of every one of your virtues. Man performs actions because...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM He found that it was easy to make a heroic gesture, but hard to abide by its results.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I only wanted to suggest to you that self-sacrifice is a passion so overwhelming that beside it even...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Art is triumphant when it can use convention as an instrument of its own purpose.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I don’t think I shall ever find peace till I make up my mind about things,’ he said gravely. He ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Man's desire for the approval of his fellows is so strong, his dread of their censure so violent, th...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Because women can do nothing except love, they've given it a ridiculous importance. They want to per...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM She loved three things — a joke, a
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Women are constantly trying to commit suicide for love, but generally they take care not to succeed.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is one of the defects of my character that I cannot altogether dislike anyone who makes me laugh.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When I was young I had an elderly friend who used often to ask me to stay with him in the country. H...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large wi...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering f...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Lady Hodmarsh and the duchess immediately assumed the clinging affability that persons of rank assum...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The Americans who are the most efficient people on earth...have invented so wide a range of pithy an...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM From the earliest times the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser than they, and bef...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Has it occurred to you that transmigration is at once an explanation and a justification of the evil...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Money is like a sixth sense, and you can't make use of the other five without it.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The end of culture is right living.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I knew that suffering did not enoble; it degraded. It made men selfish, petty and suspicious. It abs...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Remember that it is nothing to do your duty, that is demanded of you and is no more meritorious than...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I'm not only my spirit buy my body, and who can decide how much I, my individual self, am conditione...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Charm and nothing but charm at last grows a little tiresome. It's a relief then to deal with a man w...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Life isn't long enough for love and art.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your sense of the aesth...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know the...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know the...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perhaps the most important use of money - It saves time. Life is so short, and there's so much to do...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM A man ought to work. That's what he's here for. That's how he contributes to the welfare of the comm...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We who are of mature age seldom suspect how unmercifully and yet with what insight the very young ju...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM People do tell a writer things that they don't tell others. I don't know why, unless it is that havi...
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, ch...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Writing is the supreme solace.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.
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WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM A man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that ...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Any nation that thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will soon lose its freedom; and...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is unfair to expect a politician to live in private up to the statements he makes in public.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM A man who is a politician at forty is a statesman at three score and ten. It is at this age, when he...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I would sooner read a time-table or a catalogue than nothing at all. They are much more entertaining...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with i...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the ...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM She had no mercy. He looked at her neck and thought how he would like to jab it with the knife he ha...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late. It does not improve the temper.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know t...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Impropriety is the soul of wit.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM I don't know why it is that the religious never ascribe common sense to God
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The world in general doesn't know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its comfort...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I did not hesitate to put the question that came to the tip of my tongue. After all, if you want to ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistical and self-complacent is e...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I wish I could make you see how much fuller the life I offer you is than anything you have a concept...
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I repeat here what you will find in my first chapter, that the only thing that signifies to you in a...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I did not believe him capable of love. That is an emotion in which tenderness is an essential part, ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM People talk of beauty lightly, and having no feeling for words, they use that one carelessly, so tha...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I could have forgiven it if he'd fallen desperately in love with someone and gone off with her. I sh...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The world is hard and cruel. We are here none knows why, and we go none knows whither. We must be ve...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be ...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Men have ascribed to God imperfections that they would deplore in themselves.
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The degree of a nation's civilization is marked by its disregard for the necessities of existence.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM There are two good things in life freedom of thought and freedom of action
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all of the miserie...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM There is only one thing about which I am certain, and that is that there is very little about which ...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM There is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large wi...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is ...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Considering how foolishly people act and how pleasantly they prattle, perhaps it would be better for...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries o...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The highest activities of consciousness have their origins in physical occurrences of the brain just...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM To write simply is as difficult as to be good
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Character? I should have thought it needed a good deal of character to throw up a career after half ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Philip had a practical outlook and he grew impatient with the theories which resulted in no action.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Himself an ugly man, insignificant
of appearance, he prized very highly comeliness in others.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really affectionate mo...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The crown of literature is poetry.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, on...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries o...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It was a cold morning, and he shivered a little; but he had been taught by his uncle that his prayer...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, i...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humor.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM People who ask for your criticism want only praise.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an aut...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together in their highest p...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM What has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had I not stammere...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Common sense and nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM