Men seek but one thing in life—their pleasure.

—W. Somerset Maugham

About W. Somerset Maugham

Portrait of W. Somerset Maugham

William Somerset Maugham ( MAWM; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories.

More quotations from W. Somerset Maugham

An author spends months writing a book, and maybe puts his heart's blood into it, and then it lies about unread till the reader has nothing else in the world to do.

—W. Somerset Maugham

It is very difficult to know people and I don't think one can ever really know any but one's own countrymen. For men and women are not only themselves; they are also the region in which they are born, the city apartment or the farm in which they learnt to walk, the games they played as children, the old wives' tales they overheard, the food they ate, the schools they attended, the sports they followed, the poets they read, and the God they believed in. It is all these things that have made them what they are, and these are the things that you can't come to know by hearsay, you can only know them if you have lived them.

—W. Somerset Maugham

I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody's else advice.

—W. Somerset Maugham

The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth.

—W. Somerset Maugham

When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.

—W. Somerset Maugham

History

8 Jan 2024 Added
26 Oct 2026 Wording changed

Previous wording

Men seek but one thing in life - their pleasure.