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
Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history. Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. Here is the home he sought, and he will settle amid scenes that he has never seen before, among men he has never known, as though they were familiar to him from his birth. Here at last he finds rest.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that some individuals feel an intrinsic connection to places or cultures that resonate with their ancestry or deep-seated instincts.
W. Somerset Maugham reflects on the idea that wanderers may be driven by a primal urge to return to lands reminiscent of their ancestors, even if they have never encountered those places or peoples before. This phenomenon illustrates the profound sense of belonging and comfort that can arise when one finds a location that feels inherently familiar, as if it were their true home where they can finally find peace and rest.
Themes
WandererBelongingAncestryHomeRestHistory
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of cultural heritage.
More from W. Somerset Maugham
All quotes βCronshaw 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.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
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.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
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.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
Similar quotes
I am not questioning your honor, I am denying its existence.
George R. R. MartinRead
No one, I hope, can doubt my wish to see... all mankind exercising self-government, and capable of exercising it. But the question is not what we wish, but what is practicable.
Thomas JeffersonRead
When I consider life, it is all a cheat. Yet fooled with hope, people favor this deceit.
John DrydenRead
The inward area is the first place of loss of true Christian life, of true spirituality, and the outward sinful act is the result.
Francis SchaefferRead
If you are an Arabic-speaking, Greek-Orthodox going to a French school it makes you deeply sceptical if you have to listen to three different accounts of the Crusades - one from the Muslim side, one from the Greek side and one from the Catholic side.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
ZENITH, n. The point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing or a growing cabbage. A man in bed or a cabbage in the pot is not considered as having a zenith, though Horizontalists hold that the posture of the body was immaterial.
Ambrose BierceRead