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.”

“It's asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your sense of the aesthetic.”

“[…] the Eternal turned his attention to the three shades who stood humbly and yet hopefully before him. The quick, with so short a time to live, when they talk of themselves, talk too much; but the dead, with eternity before them, are so verbose that only angels could listen to them with civility.”

“Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.”

“I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others to do for me.”

“A soul is a troublesome possession, and when man developed it he lost the Garden of Eden.”

“Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate mother.”

“Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.”

“The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.”

“Things were easier for the old novelists who saw people all of a piece. Speaking generally, their heroes were good through and through, their villains wholly bad.”

“Money is like a sixth sense - and you can't make use of the other five without it.”

“There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.”

“To eat well in England, you should have a breakfast three times a day.”

“I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell… their heart's in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ.”

“Sentimentality is only sentiment that rubs you up the wrong way.”

“I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.”

“After all, a man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing.”

“…when you are young you take the kindness people show you as your right…”

“It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.”

“You bloody fool, you've killed the wrong man.”

“It is unsafe to take your reader for more of a fool than he is.”

“He found himself now in the agreeable situation of being able to do what was best for others and at the same time what was convenient to himself.”

“He had doubts about the utility of examination on subjects which had been crammed for the occasion. He wanted common sense.”

“He was always seeking for a meaning in life, and here it seemed to him that a meaning was offered; but it was obscure and vague. He was profoundly troubled. He saw what looked like the truth as by flashes of lightning on a dark, stormy night you might see a mountain range. He seemed to see that a man need not leave his life to chance, but that his will was powerful; he seemed to see that self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion; he seemed to see that the inward life might be as manifold, as varied, as rich with experience, as the life of one who conquered realms and explored unknown lands.”

“Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved.”

“Passion is destructive; if it does not destroy, it dies.”

“Men seek but one thing in life — their pleasure.”

“One of the falsest of proverbs is that you must lie on the bed that you have made. The experience of life shows that people are constantly doing things which must lead to disaster, and yet by some chance manage to evade the result of their folly.”

“Both these men are in love with Natasha, Count Rostov's younger daughter, and in her Tolstoy has created the most delightful girl in fiction. Nothing is so difficult as to portray a young girl who is at once charming and interesting. Generally the young girls of fiction are colorless (Amelia in Vanity Fair), priggish (Fanny in Mansfield Park), too clever by half (Constantia Durham in The Egoist), or little geese (Dora in David Copperfield), silly flirts or innocent beyound belief. It is understandable that they should be an awkward subject for the novelist to deal with, for at that tender age the personality is undeveloped. Similarly a painter can only make a face interesting when the vicissitudes of life, thought, love and suffering have given it character. In the portrait of a girl the best he can do is to represent the charm and beauty of youth. But Natasha is entirely natural. She is sweet, sensitive, and sympathetic, willful, childish, womanly already, idealistic, quick-tempered, warm-hearted, headstrong, capricious and in everything enchanting. Tolstoy created many women and they are wonderfully true to life, but never another who wins the affection of the reader as does Natasha.”

“Bob Forestier had pretended for so many years to be a gentleman that in the end, forgetting that it was all a fake, he had found himself driven to act as in that stupid, conventional brain of his he thought a gentleman must act. No longer knowing the difference between sham and real, he had sacrificed his life to a spurious heroism.”