187 quotes
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.
A Writer's Notebook (1946)
It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.
The Moon and Sixpence (1919)
Men seek but one thing in life — their pleasure.
Of Human Bondage (1915)
It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank, and independent.
Of Human Bondage (1915)
A soul is a troublesome possession, and when man developed it he lost the Garden of Eden.
Red (1921)
It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.
Of Human Bondage (1915)
"I'm beginning to think it's very hard to know what to believe in this world."
Christmas Holiday (1939)
If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one, but the wise man is foolish to give them the lie.
A Writer's Notebook (1946)
Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.
The Moon and Sixpence (1919)
The more intelligent a man is the more capable is he of suffering.
A Writer's Notebook (1946)
There is no object to life. To nature nothing matters but the continuation of the species.
A Writer's Notebook (1946)
Men are always the same. Fear makes them cruel.
The Moon and Sixpence (1919)
It's asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your sense of the aesthetic.
Of Human Bondage (1915)
Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate mother.
A Writer's Notebook (1946)
Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.
The Summing Up (1938)
Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
The Summing Up (1938)
Conscience is the guardian in the individual of the rules which the community has evolved for its own preservation.
The Moon and Sixpence (1919)
There is only one thing about which I am certain, and this is that there is very little about which one can be certain.
The Summing Up (1938)
No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul.
A Writer's Notebook (1949)
Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history.
The Moon and Sixpence (1919)