Frases de William Somerset Maugham

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“No hay ninguna mujer que valga nada para el hombre, a menos que el hombre esté enamorado de ella; en este caso, vale todo lo que cuesta.”

“La gente te pide críticas, pero en realidad sólo quiere halagos.”

“Tres clases hay de ignorantes: no saber lo que debiera saberse, saber mal lo que se sabe, y saber lo que no debiera saberse.”

“En su lucha contra el individuo, la sociedad tiene tres armas : ley, opinión publica y conciencia.”

“En tiempos de hipocresía, cualquier sinceridad parece cinismo”

“Si el amor y el deber se encuentran, empieza el estado de gracia y se llega a una felicidad que es muy difícil imaginar.”

“Solo el amor y el arte hacen tolerable la existencia.”

“Uno, con la edad, se libra del deseo de hacer las cosas como los demás y hace tranquilamente y sin miedo lo que le parece a él.”

“La vejez tiene sus placeres, los cuales, aunque diferentes, no son menos que los placeres de la juventud.”

“La mayoría de las personas abandonan sus vicios sólo cuando les causan molestias.”

“Acuérdate de esto: cumplir el deber no tiene más mérito que lavarse la cara. No basta cumplirlo, pues el deber se impone. La única cosa que vale es amarlo.”

“Cada hombre tiene secretos que él mismo ignora.”

“Cuando sólo se piensa en el pasado, es que no se tiene futuro”

“El dinero es como un sexto sentido; sin él no podríamos usar completamente los otros cinco.”

“El dolor une, a veces, pero no enseña a vivir.”

“En ocasiones el exceso es estimulante. Evita que con la moderación se adquiera el mortal efecto de un hábito.”

“La gente no busca razones para hacer lo que quiere hacer, busca excusas.”

“La sensación de la distancia depende menos del espacio que del tiempo.”

“La vida es demasiado corta para hacer tú mismo lo que puedes mandar hacer a otros, pagándoles.”

“Los proverbios y las máximas son el último refugio de los desamparados.”

“Los tres deberes fundamentales de la mujer son ser bonita, ir bien vestida y no contradecir.”

“Ningún dolor nos parece justo y las injusticias siempre disponen mal.”

“Para comer bien en Inglaterra es recomendable desayunar tres veces.”

“Para rezar a Dios con devoción no hace falta creer en Dios según los dogmas de ninguna religión.”

“Si la gente sólo hablara cuando tuviera algo que decir, el ser humano perdería muy pronto el uso del lenguaje.”

“Si no quieres que te mientan, no preguntes.”

“Si otro nos critica y no nos ofendemos, el criticón se desorienta.”

“Solo avanzada ya mi vida me di cuenta de cuán fácil es decir: no lo sé.”

“Sólo una persona mediocre está siempre en su mejor momento.”

“Un filósofo es un tipo que sube a una cumbre en busca del Sol; encuentra niebla, desciende y explica el magnífico espectáculo que ha visto.”

“Para qué fatigarse buscando soluciones, cuando la certeza de encontrarlas es ya un placer delicioso.”

“He was the kind of man with whom one would have hesitated to pass a lonely evening, but with whom one might cheerfully have looked forward to spending six months.”

“Religion is…a conspiracy of…priests to gain control over the people…”

“Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.”

“You know that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.”

“The Riviera isn't only a sunny place for shady people.”

“In art honesty is not only the best but the only policy.”

“The poignancy which all beauty has.”

“There is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. This is the type that most often writes about himself.”

“Almost all the people who have had most effect on me I seem to have met by chance.”

“In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time.”

“I have always been convinced that if a woman once made up her mind to marry a man nothing but instant flight could save him.”

“Things don't get any easier by putting them off.”

“What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories.”

“I held my breath, for to me there is nothing more awe-inspiring than when a man discovers to you the nakedness of his soul.”

“Life wouldn't be worth living if I worried over the future as well as the present. When things are at their worst I find something always happens.”

“It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.”

“I had not yet learnt how contradictory is human nature; I did not know how much pose there is in the sincere, how much baseness in the noble, or how much goodness in the reprobate.”

“We have long passed the Victorian Era when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a baby.”

“Do you know that conversation is one of the greatest pleasures in life? But it wants leisure.”

“I thought I should be a fool to allow work to interfere with a delight in the passing moment that I might never enjoy again so fully.”

“It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise…”

“There are men whose sense of humour is so ill developed that they still bear a grudge against Copernicus because he dethroned them from the central position in the universe. They feel it a personal affront that they can no longer consider themselves the pivot upon which turns the whole of created things.”

“She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit…”

“Impropriety is the soul of wit.”

“When you have loved as she has loved, you grow old beautifully.”

“There is no object to life. To nature nothing matters but the continuation of the species.”

“At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.”

“He knew that women appreciated neither irony nor sarcasm, but simple jokes and funny stories. He was amply provided with both.”

“I did not then know the besetting sin of woman, the passion to discuss her private affairs with anyone who is willing to listen.”