187 quotes
After all, 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.
The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind. Failure makes people bitter and cruel.
The Summing Up (1938)
I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.
A god that can be understood is not a god.
The Razor's Edge (1943)
Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.
The Summing Up (1938)
Failure makes people bitter and cruel.
The Summing Up (1938)
The poignancy which all beauty has.
The Moon and Sixpence (1919)
When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.
Of Human Bondage (1915)
There is nothing so degrading as the constant anxiety about one's means of livelihood...Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.
Of Human Bondage (1915)
Alban was silent. It was difficult to talk to a man who spoke obvious nonsense.
The Door of Opportunity (1931)
He had doubts about the utility of examination on subjects which had been crammed for the occasion. He wanted common sense.
Of Human Bondage (1915)
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.
The Summing Up (1938)
She was making money. But she could not get over the idea that to earn her living was somewhat undignified, and she was inclined to remind you that she was a lady by birth.
The Moon and Sixpence (1919)
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.
Of Human Bondage (1915)
...when you are young you take the kindness people show you as your right...
Cakes and Ale: Or, The Skeleton in the Cupboard (1930)
Passion is destructive; if it does not destroy, it dies.
The Razor's Edge (1943)
Things don't get any easier by putting them off.
The Razor's Edge (1943)
She plunged into a sea of platitudes, and with the powerful breast stroke of a channel swimmer made her confident way towards the white cliffs of the obvious.
A Writer's Notebook (1946)
I reflected, while I chatted with the woman I had been asked to ‘take in’, that civilized man practises a strange ingenuity in wasting on tedious exercises the brief span of his life.
The Moon and Sixpence (1919)
The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very silly person who drew the curtains and turned on the light in order to shut out the tranquility of the evening.