The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
For my part I cannot believe in a God who is angry with me because I do not believe in him. I cannot believe in a God who is less tolerant than I. I cannot believe in a God who has neither humour nor common sense.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a personal struggle with conventional religious beliefs, emphasizing the need for tolerance and understanding in a deity.
W. Somerset Maugham's quote reflects his skepticism towards traditional notions of God, particularly the idea of a vengeful deity who punishes individuals for their lack of belief. It highlights a deep desire for a more compassionate and reasonable understanding of divinity, advocating for tolerance and common sense over dogma.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the nature of belief in God.
The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind.
Cronshaw stopped for a moment to drink. He had pondered for twenty years the problem whether he loved liquor because it made him talk or whether he loved conversation because it made him thirsty.
Are you sure you can prevent yourself from falling in love one of these days? Such things do happen, you know, even to the most prudent men.' Simon gave him a strange, one might even have thought a hostile, look. I should tear it out of my heart as I'd wrench out of my mouth a rotten tooth.
I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.
The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress.
There in the mist, enormous, majestic, silent and terrible, stood the Great Wall of China. Solitarily, with the indifference of nature herself, it crept up the mountain side and slipped down to the depth of the valley.
[in the]..curious way that my idealism has been mixed with my fatalism, so that I can possess the soul of a dreamer and that of a cynic at the same time......I possess a power of magic...[to] destroy the balance of a well-designed destiny with my diabolical mind.
There's a phenomenology of being sick, one that depends on temperament, personal history, and the culture which we live in.
There is no polite way to say that business is destroying the world.
Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.
I think that we're all mentally ill. Those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better - and maybe not all that much better after all.
Whatever that be which thinks, understands, wills, and acts, it is something celestial and divine.
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