William Somerset Maugham – Friendship Quotes – a large collection of famous and inspirational quotes

William Somerset Maugham Quotes

Posted on May 28, 2011May 28, 2011 by

Love is a dirty trick played on us to achieve the continuation of the species.

A man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn’t want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing.

An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.

Any nation that thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will soon lose its freedom; and the ironical thing about it is that it will lose its ease and comfort too.

Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.

At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.

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.

Considering how foolishly people act and how pleasantly they prattle, perhaps it would be better for the world if they talked more and did less.

Death doesn’t affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn’t concern the dead because they have ceased to exist.

Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it.

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

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.

Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really affectionate mother.

Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.

Have common sense and stick to the point.

I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.

I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others to do for me.

I would sooner read a time-table or a catalogue than nothing at all. They are much more entertaining than half the novels that are written.

I’ll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell… their heart’s in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ.

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

If you don’t change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?

Determination Quotes

Posted on January 8, 2011January 8, 2011 by

– “It’s a very funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.” – William Somerset Maugham

– “It was courage, faith, endurance and a dogged determination to surmount all obstacles that built this bridge.” – John J. Watson

– “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” – John Calvin Coolidge

– “The only way to find the limits of the possible is by going beyond them to the impossible.” – Arthur C. Clarke

– “Fight one more round. When your arms are so tired that you can hardly lift your hands to come on guard, fight one more round. When your nose is bleeding and your eyes are black and you are so tired that you wish your opponent would crack you one on the jaw and put you to sleep, fight one more round – remembering that the man who always fights one more round is never whipped.” – James Corbett

– “Determination is the wake-up call to the human will.” – Anthony (Tony) Robbins

– “A leader, once convinced that a particular course of action is the right one, must….be undaunted when the going gets tough.” – Ronald Reagan

– “We will either find a way or make one.” – Hannibal

– “The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.” – Vince Lombardi

– “When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it – but all that had gone before.” – Jacob Riis

– “The more you prepare, the luckier you appear.” – Terry Josephson

– “If-determination is fine but needs to be tempered with self-control.” – Unknown

– “Bear in mind, if you are going to amount to anything, that your success does not depend upon the brilliancy and the impetuosity with which you take hold, but upon the ever lasting and sanctified buldoggedness with which you hang on after you have taken hold.” – Dr. A. B. Meldrum

– “A determined soul will do more with a rusty monkey wrench than a loafer will accomplish with all the tools in a machine shop.” – Robert Hughes