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
Thank God, I can look at a sunset now without having to think how to describe it
Interpretation
The quote expresses gratitude for the ability to appreciate beauty without the pressure of needing to articulate it.
W. Somerset Maugham's quote highlights the joy of simply experiencing beauty, such as a sunset, without the compulsion to analyze or describe it. It suggests that true appreciation comes from a place of personal reflection rather than the need to communicate or explain the experience to others.
In practice
A speaker at an art exhibit might use this quote to convey the importance of experiencing art beyond verbal expression.
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.
Sport is an art: it has incredible appeal everywhere on this earth, and it fills so many human hearts with passion that it's impossible to dismiss.
If music sounds dated, it means it wasn't very good in the first place.
In a long meter hymn, a singer - they call it 'lays out a line.' And then the whole church joins in in repeating that line. And they form a wall of harmony so tight, you can't wedge a pin between it.
Look out! Be on your guard, because alone of all the arts, music moves all around you.
There's a crystallization that goes on in a poem which the young man can bring off, but which the middle-aged man can't.
All the translations of a poem in all possible languages may add nuance to nuance and, by a kind of mutual retouching, by correcting one another, may give an increasingly faithful picture of the poem they translate, yet they will never give the inner meaning of the original.
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