Best 9 quotes of Somerset Maugham on MyQuotes

He painted with the brain, and he could not help knowing that the only painting worth anything was done with the heart. (375)

Himself an ugly man, insignificant of appearance, he prized very highly comeliness in others.

It was clear that the will to achieve could not help you and confidence in yourself meant nothing. (362)

Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five. Without an adequate income half the possibilities of life are shut off. (387)

Of course a miracle may happen, and you may be a great painter, but you must confess the chances are a million to one against it. It'll be an awful sell if at the end you have to acknowledge you've made a hash of it." "I've got to paint," he repeated. "Supposing you're never anything more than third-rate, do you think it will have been worth while to give up everything? After all, in any other walk in life it doesn't matter if you're not very good; you can get along quite comfortably if you're just adequate; but it's different with an artist." "You blasted fool," he said. "I don't see why, unless it's folly to say the obvious." "I tell you I've got to paint. I can't help myself. When a man falls into the water it doesn't matter how he swims, well or badly: he's got to get out or else he'll drown.

Only the poet or the saint can water an asphalt pavement in the confident anticipation that lilies will reward his labour.

Poor Miss Porchester. She had sacrificed herself on the altar of Victorian morality, and I am afraid the consciousness that she had behaved beautifully was the only benefit she had got from it.

There is nothing so degrading as the constant anxiety about one's means of livelihood. I have nothing but contempt for the people who despise money. They are hypocrites or fools. Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five. Without an adequate income half the possibilities of life are shut off. The only thing to be careful about is that you do not pay more than a shilling for the shilling you earn. You will hear people say that poverty is the best spur to the artist. They have never felt the iron of it in their flesh. They do not know how mean it makes you. It exposes you to endless humiliation, it cuts your wings, it eats into your soul like a cancer. It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank, and independent. I pity with all my heart the artist, whether he writes or paints, who is entirely dependent for subsistence upon his art.

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