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
William Somerset Maugham
A dictator must fool all the people all the time and there's only one way to do that, he must also fool himself.
William Somerset Maugham
There is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.
William Somerset Maugham
It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it.
William 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.
William Somerset Maugham
Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit out of it.
William Somerset Maugham
I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all. They are much more entertaining than half the novels that are written.
William Somerset Maugham
You can\'t learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.
William Somerset Maugham
You can\'t learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.
William Somerset Maugham
We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them.
William Somerset Maugham