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For if the proper study of mankind is man, it is evidently more sensible to occupy yourself with the coherent, substantial and significant creatures of fiction than with the irrational and shadowy figures of real life.

— W. Somerset Maugham Cakes and Ale (1930)

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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 →

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.