It is pleasure that lurks in the practice of every one of your virtues. Man performs actions because they are good for him, and when they are good for other people as well they are thought virtuous: if he finds pleasure in helping others he is benevolent; if he finds pleasure in working for society he is public-spirited; but it is for your private pleasure that you give twopence to a beggar as much as it is for my private pleasure that I drink another whiskey and soda. I, less of a humbug than you, neither applaud myself for my pleasure nor demand your admiration. W. Somerset Maugham
Some Similar Quotes
  1. Don’t sacrifice yourself too much, because if you sacrifice too much there’s nothing else you can give and nobody will care for you. - Karl Lagerfeld
  2. Love only grows by sharing. You can only have more for yourself by giving it away to others. - Brian Tracy
  3. I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy. I woke and I saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy. - Kahlil Gibran
  4. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired... - Richard Dawkins
  5. True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one's self; but the point is not only to get out - you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand. - Henry James
More Quotes By W. Somerset Maugham
  1. The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.
  2. How can I be reasonable? To me our love was everything and you were my whole life. It is not very pleasant to realize that to you it was only an episode.
  3. As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times.
  4. 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.
  5. If a man hasn't what's necessary to make a woman love him, it's his fault, not hers.
Related Topics