Famous quotes by Playwrights

"You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth, they only say you're cynical, and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

"You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

"When you are young, you take the kindness people show you as your right"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

"There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

"The world in general doesn't know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its comfortable habits of thought, and its first reaction is one of anger"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

"The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

"The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

"Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

"Money is the string with which a sardonic destiny directs the motions of its puppets"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

"Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

"It is unsafe to take your reader for more of a fool than he is"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

"It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

"It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

"It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

"In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

"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"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

"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"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

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

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

"Have common sense and stick to the point"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

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

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

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

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

"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"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

"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"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

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

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

"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"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

"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"

W. Somerset Maugham, Playwright

"Of prosperity mortals can never have enough"

Aeschylus, Playwright

"When a match has equal partners, then I fear not"

Aeschylus, Playwright

"To mourn and bewail your ill-fortune, when you will gain a tear from those who listen, this is worth the trouble"

Aeschylus, Playwright

"To be free from evil thoughts is God's best gift"

Aeschylus, Playwright

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