Quotes by William Somerset Maugham

Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.

The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth.

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.

The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.

Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.

The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.

If a man hasn't what's necessary to make a woman love him, it's his fault, not hers.

As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times.

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself.

People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.

What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories.

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

One can be very much in love with a woman without wishing to spend the rest of one's life with her.

If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.

The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.

There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.

Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.