"The tragedy of life is that sometimes we get what we want.

Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and women, to escape the tediousness of life.
~ W. Somerset Maugham ~












Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and wo...
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More W. Somerset Maugham quotes
"The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water to run down the hill.
"Life isn't long enough for love and art.
"I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.
"He was terribly conscious that he only had one life and it seemed to sad to think that he had wasted it. He could never surmount his immeasurable regr...
"Patsy had asked him if he had had adventures in Paris and he had truthfully answered no. It was a fact that he had done nothing; his father thought he...
"A little smoke lost in the air, that was the life of a man.
"Milk is very nice, especially with a drop of brandy in it, but the domestic cow is only too glad to be rid of it. A swollen udder is very uncomfortabl...
"He was terribly conscious that he only had one life and with seemed to sad to think that he had wasted it. He could never surmount his immeasurable re...
"It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
"If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?
"To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.
"And if I am not mistaken here is the secret of the greatness that was Spain. In Spain it is men that are the poems, the pictures and the buildings. Me...
"It is clear that men accept an immediate pain rather than an immediate pleasure, but only because they expect a greater pleasure in the future. Often ...
"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 h...