It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.
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The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham
Impropriety is the soul of wit.
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The Moon and Sixpence by 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.
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The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham
"Life isn't long enough for love and art."
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The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham
Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.
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Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
"People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise."
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Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
"You know, there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action."
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Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
"Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five."
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Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched, for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real they are bruised and wounded.
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Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it.
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Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham