"[...] Do you mean to say that you could have forgiven him if he'd left you for a woman, but not if he's left you for an idea? You think you're a match for the one, but against the other you're helpless?"
"I have always been a little disconcerted by the passion women have for behaving beautifully at the death-bed of those they love. Sometimes it seems as if they grudge the longevity which postpones their chance of an effective scene."
"I did not realize how motely are the qualities that go to make up a human being. Now I am well aware that pettiness and grandour, malice and charity, hatred and love, can find place side by side in the same human heart."
"It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive."
How true about suffering. It matters where the source is coming from, or else it will be out of vanity.
"Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. And when he has made it, it is not given to all to know it. To recognize it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a melody that he sings to you, and to hear it again in your own heart you want knowledge and sensitiveness and imagination."
"Let me tell you. I imagine that for months the matter never comes into your head, and you're able to persuade yourself that you've finished with it for good and all. You rejoice in your freedom, and you feel that at last you can call your soul your own. You seem to walk with your head among the stars. And then, all of a sudden you can't stand it any more, and you notice that all the time your feet have been walking in the mud. And you want to roll yourself in it. And you find some woman, coarse and low and vulgar, some beastly creature in whom all the horror of sex is blatant, and you call upon her like a wild animal. You drink till you're blind with rage."
Somehow reminds me of Tolstoi's Ressurection.
"Strickland seemed to bear in his heart strange harmonies and unadventured patterns, and i foresaw for him an end of torture and despair. I had again the feeling that he was possessed of a devil; but you could not say that it was a devil of evil, for it was a primitive force that existed before good and ill."
I like that it is neither good nor evil, but indifferent and even cruel- discarding the flesh after it has materialized.
"[...] there is in love a sense of weakness, a desire to protect, and eagerness to to do good and give pleasure- if not unselfishness, at all events a selfishness which marvellously conceals itself; it has in it a certain diffidence. Love is absorbing; it takes the lover out of himself; the most clear-sighted, though he may know, cannot realize that this love will cease; it gives body to what he knows is illusion, and, knowing it is nothing else, he loves it better than reality. It makes a man a little more than himself, and at the same time a little less. He ceases to be himself. He is no longer an individual, but a thing, an instrument to some purpose foreign to his ego."
I like how cleverly and honestly Maugham speaks about love- that yes maybe it can be selfish but it is a reserved selfishness.
"Women are constantly trying to commit suicide for love, but generally they take care not to succeed. It's generally a gesture to arouse pity or terror in their lover."
"He had found, not himself, as the phrase goes, but a new soul with unsuspected powers. It was not only the bold simplification of hte drawing which showed so right and so singular a personality; it was not only the painting, though the flesh was painted with a passionate sensuality which had in it something miraculous; it was not onlyt eh solidity, so that you felt extraordinarily the weight of the body; there was also a spirituality, troubling and new, which led the imagination along unsuspected ways, and suggested dim empty spaces, lit only by the eternal stars, where the soul, all naked, adventured fearful to the discovery of new mysteries."
Genius- how mystical!
"A woman forgive a man for the harm he does her," he said, "but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account."
Don't really know if that's true. I'm sure if you take it to extremes then it makes sense- in the case of Dirk and his buffoonery.
"Because women can do nothing except love, they've given it a ridiculous importance. They want to persuade us that it's the whole of life. It's an insignificant part. I know lust. That's normal and healthy. Love is a disease. Women are the instruments of my pleasure; I have no patience with their claim to be helpmates, partners, companions."
Yayyyy sexismmm :)) Sorry I just had to say that. Wait there's more:
"When a woman loves you she's not satisfied until she possesses your soul. Because she's weak she has a rage for domination, and nothing less will satisfy her. She has a small mind, and she resetns the abstract which she is unable to grasp. She is occupied with material things, and she is jealous of the ideal. The soul of man wanders through the uttermost regions of the universe, and she seeks to imprison it in the circle of her account-book."
That is so well written- he is extremely witty and gets straight to the point. Account-book!
"Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them. We are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities of the conversation manual. Their brain is seething with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house."
Currently I am living in a different country- and that is exactly how I feel! Language can be such a barrier. But also you find yourself communicating in a different language- something more understandable- a mixture of assumptions and finishing each other's sentences...
"It may be that in order to realize the romance of life you must have something of the actor in you' and, capable of standing outside yourself, you must be able to watch your actions with an interest at once detached and absorbed."
This is my favorite quote from the book:
"As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times."
As if men wake up and "remember" to love, and while we're at it, to breathe...
"I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not, they are strangers in their birthplace, and the leafy lanes they have known from childhood or the populous streets in which they have played, remain but a place of passage. They may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever known. Perhaps it is this sense of strangeness that sends men far and wide in the search for something permanent, to which they may attach themselves. Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wandered 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. He 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."
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Very captivating story- and his wit is incredible. I don't usually read anglo authors- but this one I enjoyed very much. But yes I must mention that it was rather sexist- especially portraying the very admirable and masculine Strickland. Admirable in the fact that he is SO hardcore and is devoid of any emotions and comfort. Personally I took a fancy to him. And yet, the comments about women are so offensive that they become quiet funny- the whole part about them trying to pull men down to their level to trap him, while he is trying to live in the world of ideals...
It reminded me of Goethe and Thomas Mann's ideas of the divine race and how genius ends up destroying a man. Genius was referred to as "demon possession" which can be true in many cases- especially when one takes a look at these people's lives and what they did to handle their talent (drugs, alcohol- eh the usual). Specifically I like that Maugham had him become a leper in the end, and once he gave his gift to the world, he expired. It is as if the talent itself made his flesh decay... as if the poison of the soul transferred into the material. Why does genius have to bring destruction? I think the story answers this question in the sense that it is absolutely indifferent to the person. Talent takes out of its worshiper if it is worshiped enough. Yes, the believer does get indescribable pleasures and mysteries in the process, but this only aids the obsession, which in the end will destroy him. What a pity! Why can't knowledge let us be happy? But no, we always want more, and Genius gives it to us, until we cannot take it anymore. I think we have a certain defined capacity for Knowledge, but once it surpasses our limits, we get crushed under its infinite weight. No wonder Adam and Eve weren't supposed to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil... but that is what we continue to do, and it poisons the believer until he dies of it. On the other hand, what a unique significant life! To be exposed to these mysteries! Who wouldn't want to feel the rush of genius late at night alone while the universe is whispering its secrets to you? Then- you have a purpose! But this purpose unfortunately is unachievable completely, and not only this- but the purpose itself becomes a person- and instead of you using it, IT uses you! Until it no longer needs you. For it is not your Purpose- but the Purpose which has been given to humanity... and after your death, it poisons yet another victim...
What suffering these men have gone through ending with suicides or just unhappy lives, in order to give up their gift to an indifferent society? Is it worth it? I wonder what they would say... these ones afflicted by Genius...
Published: Progress Publishers Moscow
"I have always been a little disconcerted by the passion women have for behaving beautifully at the death-bed of those they love. Sometimes it seems as if they grudge the longevity which postpones their chance of an effective scene."
"I did not realize how motely are the qualities that go to make up a human being. Now I am well aware that pettiness and grandour, malice and charity, hatred and love, can find place side by side in the same human heart."
"It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive."
How true about suffering. It matters where the source is coming from, or else it will be out of vanity.
"Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. And when he has made it, it is not given to all to know it. To recognize it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a melody that he sings to you, and to hear it again in your own heart you want knowledge and sensitiveness and imagination."
"Let me tell you. I imagine that for months the matter never comes into your head, and you're able to persuade yourself that you've finished with it for good and all. You rejoice in your freedom, and you feel that at last you can call your soul your own. You seem to walk with your head among the stars. And then, all of a sudden you can't stand it any more, and you notice that all the time your feet have been walking in the mud. And you want to roll yourself in it. And you find some woman, coarse and low and vulgar, some beastly creature in whom all the horror of sex is blatant, and you call upon her like a wild animal. You drink till you're blind with rage."
Somehow reminds me of Tolstoi's Ressurection.
"Strickland seemed to bear in his heart strange harmonies and unadventured patterns, and i foresaw for him an end of torture and despair. I had again the feeling that he was possessed of a devil; but you could not say that it was a devil of evil, for it was a primitive force that existed before good and ill."
I like that it is neither good nor evil, but indifferent and even cruel- discarding the flesh after it has materialized.
"[...] there is in love a sense of weakness, a desire to protect, and eagerness to to do good and give pleasure- if not unselfishness, at all events a selfishness which marvellously conceals itself; it has in it a certain diffidence. Love is absorbing; it takes the lover out of himself; the most clear-sighted, though he may know, cannot realize that this love will cease; it gives body to what he knows is illusion, and, knowing it is nothing else, he loves it better than reality. It makes a man a little more than himself, and at the same time a little less. He ceases to be himself. He is no longer an individual, but a thing, an instrument to some purpose foreign to his ego."
I like how cleverly and honestly Maugham speaks about love- that yes maybe it can be selfish but it is a reserved selfishness.
"Women are constantly trying to commit suicide for love, but generally they take care not to succeed. It's generally a gesture to arouse pity or terror in their lover."
"He had found, not himself, as the phrase goes, but a new soul with unsuspected powers. It was not only the bold simplification of hte drawing which showed so right and so singular a personality; it was not only the painting, though the flesh was painted with a passionate sensuality which had in it something miraculous; it was not onlyt eh solidity, so that you felt extraordinarily the weight of the body; there was also a spirituality, troubling and new, which led the imagination along unsuspected ways, and suggested dim empty spaces, lit only by the eternal stars, where the soul, all naked, adventured fearful to the discovery of new mysteries."
Genius- how mystical!
"A woman forgive a man for the harm he does her," he said, "but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account."
Don't really know if that's true. I'm sure if you take it to extremes then it makes sense- in the case of Dirk and his buffoonery.
"Because women can do nothing except love, they've given it a ridiculous importance. They want to persuade us that it's the whole of life. It's an insignificant part. I know lust. That's normal and healthy. Love is a disease. Women are the instruments of my pleasure; I have no patience with their claim to be helpmates, partners, companions."
Yayyyy sexismmm :)) Sorry I just had to say that. Wait there's more:
"When a woman loves you she's not satisfied until she possesses your soul. Because she's weak she has a rage for domination, and nothing less will satisfy her. She has a small mind, and she resetns the abstract which she is unable to grasp. She is occupied with material things, and she is jealous of the ideal. The soul of man wanders through the uttermost regions of the universe, and she seeks to imprison it in the circle of her account-book."
That is so well written- he is extremely witty and gets straight to the point. Account-book!
"Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them. We are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities of the conversation manual. Their brain is seething with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house."
Currently I am living in a different country- and that is exactly how I feel! Language can be such a barrier. But also you find yourself communicating in a different language- something more understandable- a mixture of assumptions and finishing each other's sentences...
"It may be that in order to realize the romance of life you must have something of the actor in you' and, capable of standing outside yourself, you must be able to watch your actions with an interest at once detached and absorbed."
This is my favorite quote from the book:
"As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times."
As if men wake up and "remember" to love, and while we're at it, to breathe...
"I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not, they are strangers in their birthplace, and the leafy lanes they have known from childhood or the populous streets in which they have played, remain but a place of passage. They may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever known. Perhaps it is this sense of strangeness that sends men far and wide in the search for something permanent, to which they may attach themselves. Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wandered 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. He 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."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Very captivating story- and his wit is incredible. I don't usually read anglo authors- but this one I enjoyed very much. But yes I must mention that it was rather sexist- especially portraying the very admirable and masculine Strickland. Admirable in the fact that he is SO hardcore and is devoid of any emotions and comfort. Personally I took a fancy to him. And yet, the comments about women are so offensive that they become quiet funny- the whole part about them trying to pull men down to their level to trap him, while he is trying to live in the world of ideals...
It reminded me of Goethe and Thomas Mann's ideas of the divine race and how genius ends up destroying a man. Genius was referred to as "demon possession" which can be true in many cases- especially when one takes a look at these people's lives and what they did to handle their talent (drugs, alcohol- eh the usual). Specifically I like that Maugham had him become a leper in the end, and once he gave his gift to the world, he expired. It is as if the talent itself made his flesh decay... as if the poison of the soul transferred into the material. Why does genius have to bring destruction? I think the story answers this question in the sense that it is absolutely indifferent to the person. Talent takes out of its worshiper if it is worshiped enough. Yes, the believer does get indescribable pleasures and mysteries in the process, but this only aids the obsession, which in the end will destroy him. What a pity! Why can't knowledge let us be happy? But no, we always want more, and Genius gives it to us, until we cannot take it anymore. I think we have a certain defined capacity for Knowledge, but once it surpasses our limits, we get crushed under its infinite weight. No wonder Adam and Eve weren't supposed to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil... but that is what we continue to do, and it poisons the believer until he dies of it. On the other hand, what a unique significant life! To be exposed to these mysteries! Who wouldn't want to feel the rush of genius late at night alone while the universe is whispering its secrets to you? Then- you have a purpose! But this purpose unfortunately is unachievable completely, and not only this- but the purpose itself becomes a person- and instead of you using it, IT uses you! Until it no longer needs you. For it is not your Purpose- but the Purpose which has been given to humanity... and after your death, it poisons yet another victim...
What suffering these men have gone through ending with suicides or just unhappy lives, in order to give up their gift to an indifferent society? Is it worth it? I wonder what they would say... these ones afflicted by Genius...
Published: Progress Publishers Moscow
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