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Now 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 Great Novelists and Their Novels (1948)

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More quotes by W. Somerset Maugham

You know, there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action.

Of Human Bondage (1915)

You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences.

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.

Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.

The Summing Up (1938)

But when all was said the important thing was to love rather than to be loved.

Of Human Bondage (1915)

All W. Somerset Maugham quotes →

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Do you know how you make someone into a Dalek? Subtract Love, add Anger.

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There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.

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Never forget what a man has said to you when he was angry.

Henry Ward Beecher Life Thoughts (1858)

An unsanctified temper is a fruitful source of error, and a mighty impediment to truth.

Elias Lyman Magoon Proverbs for the People (1849)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: W. Somerset Maugham (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.