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
People talk of beauty lightly, and having no feeling for words, they use that one carelessly, so that it loses its force; and the thing it stands for, sharing its name with a hundred trivial objects, is deprived of dignity. They call beautiful a dress, a dog, a sermon; and when they are face to face with Beauty cannot recognise it.
Interpretation
Beauty is often misused and trivialized in everyday language, losing its true significance.
In this quote, W. Somerset Maugham critiques how people casually refer to various superficial items as beautiful, diluting the power and meaning of the term 'beauty.' By equating profound beauty with ordinary objects, individuals become desensitized and unable to appreciate genuine beauty when they encounter it.
In practice
During an art exhibition, to emphasize the importance of understanding true beauty in art.
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.
A picture is nothing but a bridge between the soul of the artist and that of the spectator.
Poetry demands a different material than prose. It uses another facet of the same fact... the spontaneous conformation of language as it is heard.
If you shoot with a billion cameras, then there's no perspective. You want to use one shot at a time, so it's better to discover what that is before you shoot, rather than trying to make something in the cutting room, and then it just becomes generic.
Without doubt I praise the wild excellence.
We must never confuse elegance with snobbery.
With stammering lips and insufficient sound I strive and struggle to deliver right the music of my nature.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.