"I am a little shy of any assumption of moral indignation. There is always in it an element of self-satisfaction which makes it awkward to anyone who has a sense of humour."

W. Somerset Maugham Literature See all quotes by W. Somerset Maugham →

React to this quote

More by W. Somerset Maugham

“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.”

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

“Conscience is the guardian in the individual of the rules which the community has evolved for its own preservation.”

“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.”

“You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humour teaches tolerance, and the humorist, with a smile and perhaps a sigh, is more likely to shrug his shoulders than to condemn.”

“The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water to run down the hill.”

Resonant Thoughts

"There's a theory someone told me that the age you become famous is the age you're mostly going to stay forever. Which is kind of offensive! But there's a grain of truth to it. I'm always going to have…"

— Daniel Johns

Music1979

#time

"Francis Bacon, the famous philosopher, has rightly said that a little knowledge of science makes you an atheist, but an in-depth study of science makes you a believer in God. Scientists today are elim…"

— Zakir Naik

Politics1965

#knowledge

"Social reformers and legislators will never be economists, and they will always work on economic theory of one kind or another. They will quote and apply such dicta as they can assimilate, and such a…"

— Philip Wicksteed

Economics1844–1927

#truth

"The good stuff of most religions turns out to be a golden rule that defines a morality which allows humans to flourish in community. We come from a whole lineage of creatures who are robustly social a…"

— Ursula Goodenough

Literature1943

#society