W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

But to do this kind of work, you have to be very strong, otherwise you lose your personality, your identity.

Once you encounter people who are really testing the limits of kindness, that's when you start to build up a shield and close yourself down.

I'm a private person. And I have a certain way in which I protect myself. I don't openly wear my feelings.

We build our character as a carapace to keep away the fear of the abyss. That's what our character is for.

Smile with instinct, then lick your wounds in the darkest of dark corners. Trace the scars back to your own fingers and remember them.

You cannot build up a character in a solitude; you need a formed character to stand a solitude.

The lessons we learn from patience will cultivate our character, lift our lives, and heighten our happiness.

Any fool can fight a winning battle, but it needs character to fight a losing one, and that should inspire us; which reminds me that I dreamed the other night that I was being hanged, but was the life and soul of the party.

You get tough like me and you don't get hurt. You look out for yourself and nothin' can touch you.

Those with the softest hearts build the hardest shells.

Each man has a breaking point, no matter how strong his spirit. Somewhere, deep inside him, there is a flaw that only the fickle cruelty of fate can find.

...the human being to lack that second skin we call egoism has not yet been born, it lasts much longer than the other one, that bleeds so readily.

Character, like porcelain-ware, must be painted before it is glazed. There can be no change of color after it is burned in.

There is a sort of natural instinct of human dignity in the heart of man which steels his very nerves not to bend beneath the heavy blows of a great adversity. The palm-tree grows best beneath a ponderous weight, even so the character of man. There is no merit in it, it is a law of psychology. The petty pangs of small daily cares have often bent the character of men, but great misfortunes seldom. There is less danger in this than in great good luck.

We repeat again: strength of character does not consist solely in having powerful feelings, but in maintaining one’s balance in spite of them. Even with the violence of emotion, judgment and principle must still function like a ship’s compass, which records the slightest variations however rough the sea.

One false idea is that anyone can hurt you. Events can ruin your reputation, take your money, mistreat you, revenge itself upon you, deceive, betray, abandon you, but cannot hurt you.

Words are wind, Brienne told herself. They cannot hurt you. Let them wash over you.

My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth.

When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.

It often requires more courage to suffer in silence than to rebel, more courage not to strike back than to retaliate, more courage to be silent than to speak.

It is the mind that makes the body rich; and as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds, so honor peereth in the meanest habit.

Non- reaction is not weakness, But Strength!

Moderation is an ostentatious proof of our strength of character.

Faith always shows itself in the whole personality.