40 Of Human Bondage Quotes by W. Somerset Maugham

W. Somerset Maugham’s novel ‘Of Human Bondage’ was written in 1915.

The story revolves on Philip Carey, an orphan who yearns for life, love, and adventure.

Philip moves in London to train as a doctor after studying in Heidelberg and attempting to be an artist in Paris.

Here are the top quotes from Of Human Bondage novel.

Of Human Bondage Quotes by W. Somerset Maugham

“Men have always formed gods in their own image.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“There was neither good nor bad there. There were just facts. It was life.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“Saw everything larger than life size, with the outlines blurred, in a golden mist of sentimentality.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“He thought to himself that there could be no greater torture in the world than at the same time to love and to contemn.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“It’s no good crying over spilt milk, because all the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“A Unitarian very earnestly disbelieves in almost everything that anybody else believes, and he has a very lively sustaining faith in he doesn’t quite know what.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“Oh, it’s always the same,’ she sighed, ‘if you want men to behave well to you, you must be beastly to them; if you treat them decently they make you suffer for it.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

Quotes from Of Human Bondage

“There is nothing so terrible as the pursuit of art by those who have no talent.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“The bright hopes of youth had to be paid for at such a bitter price of disillusionment.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“His habit of reading isolated him: it became such a need that after being in company for some time he grew tired and restless …” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“His death had been as futile as his life. He died ingloriously, of a stupid disease, failing once more, even at the end, to accomplish anything.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

Famous Of Human Bondage Quotes

“I don’t think that women ought to sit down at table with men. It ruins conversation and I’m sure it’s very bad for them. It puts ideas in their heads, and women are never at ease with themselves when they have ideas.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“There’s always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“It is cruel to discover one’s mediocrity only when it is too late. It does not improve the temper.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“Self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion…” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“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.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“He did not care if she was heartless, vicious and vulgar, stupid and grasping, he loved her. He would rather have misery with one than happiness with the other.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

Best Of Human Bondage Quotes

“The fact was that he had ceased to believe not for this reason or the other, but because he had not the religious temperament.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“It looked as though you did not act in a certain way because you thought in a certain way, but rather you thought in a certain way because you were made in a certain way. Truth had nothing to do with it.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“You think pleasure is only of the senses; the wretched slaves who manufactured your morality despised a satisfaction which they had small means of enjoying.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“You know, there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“Men seek but one thing in life – their pleasure.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage). by Somerset Maugham

“People ask for your criticism, but they only want praise.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“The important thing was to love rather than to be loved.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and women, to escape the tediousness of life.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage). by Somerset Maugham.

Powerful Of Human Bondage Quotes

“He was thankful not to have to believe in God, for then such a condition of things would be intolerable; one could reconcile oneself to existence only because it was meaningless.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“The only reasonable thing was to accept the good of men and be patient with their faults. The words of the dying God crossed his memory: Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“He was the most inconsiderable creature in that swarming mass of mankind which for a brief space occupied the surface of the earth; and he was almighty because he had wrenched from chaos the secret of its nothingness.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“Society tempts me to its service by honours and riches and the good opinion of my fellows; but I am indifferent to their good opinion, I despise honours and I can do very well without riches.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one’s mind.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“The rain fell alike upon the just and upon the unjust, and for nothing was there a why and a wherefore.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“Benevolence is often very peremptory.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“Schools are made for the average. The holes are all round, and whatever shape the pegs are they must wedge in somehow. One hasn’t time to bother about anything but the average.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“From old habit, unconsciously he thanked God that he no longer believed in Him.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

“A thing that had always struck her about the child was that he seemed so collected. She had never seen him cry. And now she realized that his calmness was some instinctive shame of showing his feelings; he hid himself to weep.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage).

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