In business sharp practice sometimes succeeds, but in art honesty is not only the best but the only policy.
W. Somerset MaughamConscience is the guardian in the individual of the rules which the community has evolved for its own preservation.
W. Somerset MaughamI've met so many people, often the scum of the earth, and found them, you know, quite decent. I am an uncomfortable stranger to moral indignation.
W. Somerset MaughamWe are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities of the conversation manual. Their brain is seething with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house.
W. Somerset Maugham