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A perfectly decent fellow may be driven by circumstances to commit a crime and if he's found out he's punished; but he may very well remain a perfectly decent fellow.


W.Somerset Maugham

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What I say is that, if a fellow really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow.
A. A. MILNE I got very well acquainted with Joe Stalin, and I like old Joe! He is a decent fellow. But Joe is a ...
HARRY S TRUMAN You seem a decent fellow," Inigo said. "I hate to kill you."
You seem a decent fellow," answere...
WILLIAM GOLDMAN What I say is that, if a man really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow.
A.A. MILNE Every time hes supposed to be here, hes showed up,
BRENDA JONES God is always on time, it may not be the time you are expecting, but hes on time. Just like he said ...
ARTHLENE LAUDAT LAWRENCE If you only write when inspired, you may be a fairly decent poet, but you'll never be a novelist.
NEIL GAIMAN Good heavens, I suppose a man may eat his own muffins in his own garden."
"But you have just sa...
OSCAR WILDE A man is worked upon by what he works on. He may carve out his circumstances, but his circumstances ...
FREDERICK DOUGLASS It may be slow, but it's perfectly usable.
KEVIN MCGEHEE A decent invention may be somewhat like a flower; it'll take a decent amount of time for the idea to...
BRANDON SEEDORFF Nobody out there can say that if the state passed a hate-crime law any crime would decrease. People ...
GAYLE RUZICKA However degraded or wretched a fellow mortal may be, he is still a member of our common species
SENECA Hes ready to go every morning. He runs right over to the cruiser,
PETER GOULD My brother went to New Orleans when he was 19, ... Hes 72 now.
BARBARA UPTON On the facts thus far, the president has a decent argument that he acted lawfully. There's also a de...
CASS SUNSTEIN An individual hunter may or may not detect it, but with three years of protecting younger bucks unde...
CHRISTOPHER ROSENBERRY One is a great deal less anxious if one feels perfectly free to be anxious, and the same may be said...
ALAN W. WATTS Hes the smartest dog Ive ever had,
PETER GOULD Hes doing better than what we thought.
JAMIE KING What may appear to be the wrong way by other people's standards may indeed be the perfectly inspired...
LINDA CULL No one will remember the kick in the balls if hes bleeding everywhere...
NATHAN ELMO MELO How lucky I am to have known somebody and something that saying goodbye to is so damned awful.
EVANS G. VALENS If this man had not twelve thousand a year, he would be a very stupid fellow.
JANE AUSTEN I've always found paranoia to be a perfectly defensible position.
PAT CONROY Desire for approval and recognition is a healthy motive, but the desire to be acknowledged as better...
ALBERT EINSTEIN You may not even realize you're getting a salt-water-damaged car. It may look perfectly pristine.
ROSEMARY SHAHAN [Senior Rob Hudson sustained his good form with a 3-under par 33 to earn medalist honors for the var...
ALEX ADAMS For where there is true love, a man is neither out of measure lifted up by prosperity, nor cast down...
JOHANNES TAULER A very tough game against a decent Jamaican side that played very well today.
IAN BRIDGE Human beings may be miserable specimens, in the main, but we can learn, and, through learning, becom...
ORSON SCOTT CARD We must learn which ceremonies may be breached occasionally at our convenience and which ones may ne...
AMY VANDERBILT He excels in wheeling and dealing - I'm sure he'll manage the parliament. He is an utterly decent ma...
HAMID KARZAI He was well known as a jolly and caring fellow.
DALE GOODWIN I think one can achieve a very pleasant lifestyle by treating human beings, fellow human beings, ver...
RENE RIVKIN Somewhere deep down there's a decent man in me, he just can't be found.
EMINEM its almost as if he was raised by wolves, but wolves who knew the value of a decent education.
DAVID NICHOLLS Jacques looks a bit more serious and he could be out for a decent period, but we are not too sure.
GRAEME SMITH I have known Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla for a long time. He is a good man. He is a decent man.
N. R. NARAYANA MURTHY A coin is examined, and only after careful deliberation, given to a beggar, whereas a child is flung...
PETER WESSEL ZAPFFE If we all took a minute to reflect upon the wrong we do we would be quite surprised or shocked.Inste...
GARY F EVANS... A man who prides himself on being better than his fellow-men thinks it a disgrace if he does not do ...
SAINT BERNARD If only one person were perfectly informed there could never be a general crisis. But the only perfe...
ROBERT SKIDELSKY I may not be the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick the smartest people to do busines...
ZIAD K. ABDELNOUR The market is fragmented so consolidation makes sense and long-term it may be worth paying a decent ...
JOHN LAWSON As for an authentic villain, the real thing, the absolute, the artist, one rarely meets him even onc...
SIDONIE GABRIELLE COLETTE People themselves makes a lots of mistakes and still loves himself, and they never forget a single m...
OM BENIWAL You can not change what happened or bring back the past. But you can change the future by being stro...
DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA Every man has been brought up with the idea that decent women don't pop in and out of bed; he has al...
BARBARA CARTLAND Every man has been brought up with the idea that decent women don't pop in and out of bed; he has al...
BARBARA CARTLAND Every man has been brought up with the idea that decent women don't pop in and out of bed; he has al...
BARBARA CARTLAND The Dream of a Queer Fellow I write the words again and they appear doubly pregnant with meaning. It...
JOHN MIDDLETON MURRY I'd find the fellow who lost it, and, if he was poor, I'd return it. [When asked what he would do if...
YOGI BERRA A neurotic can perfectly well be a literary genius, but his greatest danger is always that he will n...
LOUIS AUCHINCLOSS Befriend him, death, and pity him, may he from here arise! Unharmed, with sound limbs, hearing perfe...
ATHARVA VEDA It may seem a hard task to condemn fellow creatures to long years of confinement in prison, but it i...
THOMAS MELLON My dear fellow, the way you flirt with Gwendolen is perfectly disgraceful. It is almost as disgracef...
OSCAR WILDE The only crime, if any, that may have been committed in these circumstances is the perpetration of a...
MICHAEL GRANT Nobody's perfect, but he's a decent guy and he works hard.
BRIAN HUMKE There's the 'right way' and the 'usual way'.
Folks tend to confuse both.
The right way i...
UFUOMA APOKI He has been a decent player in the past...but things have not worked out here.
ALAN VEST A certain person may have, as you say, a wonderful presence; I do not know. What I do know is that h...
IDRIES SHAH And here I think one has an enormous area in which the ultimate revolution could function very well ...
ALDOUS HUXLEY Time... is an essential requirement for effective research. An investigator may be given a palace to...
WALTER BRADFORD CANNON I believe God has a plan. God has a direction for me. He may put me on a few detours, but the path w...
CLAY AIKEN The public airwaves provide a chance to affirm we want to be a good, decent people; a good, decent n...
CHARLES W. PICKERING If they're somewhat decent and tall, they tend to get gobbled up by a bigger classification.
DAVE BIKE The outstanding thing about my father to me anyway was just what a good and decent person he was. He...
RON REAGAN I can usually judge a fellow by what he laughs at.
WILSON MIZNER There are no plans to rebuild the dam. The Maclay family believes it does have a perfectly valid rig...
DAVID BLAIR The treatise found that he was perfectly within his rights to use them.
MICHAEL SCHEUER Well, we're going to give it a shot. If she's doing well and everything is OK, we're going to run he...
EDDIE KENNEALLY Mr. Speaker, the goal of stem cell research should be to help our fellow human beings. The debate on...
JIM RYUN Ryan Karr played really well. Zach Sykes played really well. He got beat by John Dixon, but John Dix...
ERIC LYONS There is really no substitute for a well thought out and perfectly executed plan of action.
STEVEN REDHEAD People go on marrying because they can't resist natural forces, although many of them may know perfe...
THOMAS HARDY (Dear kirk hammet, what kind of vegitarian are you? a lactose vegitarian, a ovum vegitarian, or a ve...
JAMES HETFIELD Religious leaders are supposed to be that and he seems like a decent-looking guy.
TED TURNER The sector is doing well. But they're highly leveraged. There will be a decent premium, around 10-to...
STEVE TUEN Every decent man of our age must be a coward and a slave. That is his normal condition. Of that I am...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY The consumer has not run out of gas yet, provided the job market continues to remain fairly decent.
KEN PERKINS It was very, very hard (but) it's great to win a race that worked perfectly.
BASTIEN RIPOLL People live for eating,but I eat for survive
OM BENIWAL There is plenty of building material and more than enough manpower to make a decent home for every C...
FIDEL CASTRO He can be a hard fellow to figure out. It's his unpredictability that helps make him so fascinating.
DAN HOLMES Check your passions that you may not be punished by them.
EPICTETUS He told me that he had a girlfriend. He wasn't a bit worried. He was a very charming fellow.
JIM KENNEDY If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how t...
LIN YUTANG If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how t...
LYN YUTANG I do not believe anyone can be perfectly well, who has a brain and a heart
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW I think it's perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it,...
PHILIP PULLMAN There may be some trees that are perfectly healthy where you might be able to just ramp on over (the...
BUTCH SEIDLE Associate with well-mannered persons and your manners will improve. Run around with decent folk and ...
STANLEY WALKER Eventually I came across another passage. This is what it said:
I am not commanding you, but I ...
NICHOLAS SPARKS To kill a mockingbird. If you haven't read it, I think you should because it is very interesting.
STEPHEN CHBOSKY I will never forget the vision of Jamie walking towards me.
NICHOLAS SPARKS As these images were going through my head, my breathing suddenly went still. I looked at Jamie, the...
NICHOLAS SPARKS You don't have to learn much out of books, it's like if you want to learn about cows, you go milk on...
HARPER LEE You can't really get to know a person until you get in their shoes and walk around in them.
HARPER LEE Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately no one knows what they are.
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Any nation that thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will soon lose its freedom; and...
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perfection has one grave defect. It is apt to be dull.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perfection is what American women expect to find in their husbands... but English women only hope to...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in...
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I've always been interested in people, but I've never liked them.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humor.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance.
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Only a mediocre person is always at his best.
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Sentimentality is the only sentiment that rubs you the wrong way.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress.
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You know that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the ...
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The well-dressed man is he whose clothes you never notice.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM For the memory of love is sweet, though the love itself were in vain. And what I have lost of pleasu...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perfection is what American women expect to find in their husbands... but English women only hope ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The end of culture is right living.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, ch...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot, who calls you back when you hang up on him, who w...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I knew that suffering did not enoble; it degraded. It made men selfish, petty and suspicious. It abs...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her...but she can never forgive him for the sacrifice...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The average American can get into the kingdom of heaven much more easily than he can get into the Bo...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When you're eighteen your emotions are violent, but they're not durable.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You learn more quickly under the guidance of experienced teachers. You waste a lot of time going dow...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Often the best way to overcome desire is to satisfy it.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's always difficult to make conversation with a drunk, and there's no denying it, the sober are at...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Tao. Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whiskey and some in love. I...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM One cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one's soul.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The crown of literature is poetry.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering f...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM They were talking more distantly than if they were strangers who had just met, for if they had been ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM How can I be reasonable? To me our love was everything and you were my whole life. It is not very pl...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I would sooner read a time-table or a catalogue than nothing at all. They are much more entertaining...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really affectionate mo...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Resignation is the timid sign of courage
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know the...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain su...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with i...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate m...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Unfortunately sometimes one can't do what one thinks is right without making someone else unhappy.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM People do tell a writer things that they don't tell others. I don't know why, unless it is that havi...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The love that lasts the longest is the love that is never returned.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is well to remember that grammar is common speech formulated
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There are few things so pleasant as a picnic eaten in perfect comfort.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The dead look so terribly dead when they're dead.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We who are of mature age seldom suspect how unmercifully and yet with what insight the very young ju...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's a toss-up when you decide to leave the beaten track. Many are called, but few are chosen.
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I never spend more than one hour in a gallery. That is as long as one's power of appreciation persis...
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM An author spends months writing a book, and maybe puts his heart's blood into it, and then it lies a...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM All important persons have about them someone in a subordinate position who has their ear. These dep...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM A man ought to work. That's what he's here for. That's how he contributes to the welfare of the comm...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM To write simply is as difficult as to be good.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is funny about life: if you refuse to accept anything but the very best you will very often get i...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When I was young I had an elderly friend who used often to ask me to stay with him in the country. H...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Love is a dirty trick played on us to achieve the continuation of the species.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We have long passed the Victorian era, when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a ba...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacri...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches them tolerance.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large wi...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actuall...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Tolerance is only another name for indifference.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage. He lives by make-believe.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I do not confer praise or blame: I accept. I am the measure of all things. I am the centre of the wo...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and wo...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When you have loved as she has loved, you grow old beautifully.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is er...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Nothing in the world is permanent, and we're foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we're ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity. The beauty o...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When I was young I was amazed at Plutarch's statement that the elder Cato began at the age of eighty...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is er...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who has lost it.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Charm and nothing but charm at last grows a little tiresome. It's a relief then to deal with a man w...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM