{"author":"W. Somerset Maugham","author_id":"W.+Somerset+Maugham","total_quotes":236,"quotes":[{"text":"Beauty is an ecstasy it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.","author":"W. Somerset Maugham","tags":["rose","simple","you "],"id":2954,"author_id":"W.+Somerset+Maugham"},{"text":"She alone had been blind to his merit. Why? Because he loved her and she did not love him. What was it in the human heart that made you despise a man because he loved you?","author":"W. Somerset Maugham","tags":["love","unrequited-love"],"id":4693,"author_id":"W.+Somerset+Maugham"},{"text":"Only a mediocre person is always at his best. ","author":"W. Somerset Maugham","tags":["on-writing","writing"],"id":7465,"author_id":"W.+Somerset+Maugham"},{"text":"I do not believe that I am a vindictive man, but when the immortal gods take a hand in the matter it is pardonable to observe the results with complacency.","author":"W. Somerset Maugham","tags":["revenge"],"id":9546,"author_id":"W.+Somerset+Maugham"},{"text":"Can the law get blood out of a stone? I haven't any money.","author":"W. Somerset Maugham","tags":["debt","law","law-enforcement","poverty"],"id":11067,"author_id":"W.+Somerset+Maugham"},{"text":"The man I am writing about is not famous. It may be that he never will be. It may be that when his life at last comes to an end he will leave no more trace of his sojourn on earth than a stone thrown into a river leaves on the surface of the water.","author":"W. Somerset Maugham","tags":["famous","lake","life","meaning","razor-s-edge","ripple","river","stone","surface","water"],"id":15682,"author_id":"W.+Somerset+Maugham"},{"text":"I know that I shall die struggling for breath, and I know that I shall be horribly afraid. I know that I shall not be able to keep myself from regretting bitterly the life that has brought me to such a pass; but I disown that regret. I now, weak, old, diseased, poor, dying, hold still my soul in my hands, and I regret nothing.","author":"W. Somerset Maugham","tags":["death"],"id":17586,"author_id":"W.+Somerset+Maugham"},{"text":"Character? I should have thought it needed a good deal of character to throw up a career after half an hour’s meditation, because you saw in another way of living a more intense significance. And it required still more character never to regret the sudden step. I wondered if Abraham really had made a hash of life. Is to do what you most want, to live under the conditions that please you, in peace with yourself, to make a hash of life; and is it success to be an eminent surgeon with ten thousand a year and a beautiful wife? I suppose it depends on what meaning you attach to life, the claim which you acknowledge to society, and the claim of the individual. But again I held my tongue, for who am I to argue with a knight?","author":"W. Somerset Maugham","tags":["aim","decisions","life","self-fulfillment"],"id":20644,"author_id":"W.+Somerset+Maugham"},{"text":"On the earth, satellite of a star speeding through space, living things had arisen under the influence of conditions which were part of the planet's history; and as there had been a beginning of life upon it, so, under the influence of other conditions, there would be an end: man, no more significant than other forms of life, had come not as the climax of creation but as a physical reaction to the environment.","author":"W. Somerset Maugham","tags":["earth","human","life","man"],"id":21647,"author_id":"W.+Somerset+Maugham"},{"text":"...He had few illusions, for here are some of the things that life had taught him: 'Men hate those whom they have injured; men love those whom they have benefited; men naturally avoid their benefactors; men are universally actuated by self-interest; gratitude is a lovely sense of expected benefits; promises are never forgotten by those to whom they are made, usually by those who make them.","author":"W. Somerset Maugham","tags":["human-nature","illusions"],"id":22636,"author_id":"W.+Somerset+Maugham"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":236,"pages":24,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}