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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.

— W. Somerset Maugham The Summing Up (1938)

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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)

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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.