The Gentleman in the Parlour Quotes

“Pensei para mim que os homens são mais interessantes do que os livros, mas têm o defeito de não podermos saltar certos capítulos. Temos, no mínimo, de folhear o livro inteiro para encontrar uma página que valha a pena. E não podemos colocá-los numa estante e pegar neles quando nos apetece; é preciso lê-los quando a oportunidade se apresenta, à semelhança de um livro de uma biblioteca itinerante que é muito procurado, e temos de esperar a nossa vez para o ler e, quando o recebemos, não podemos ficar com ele mais de vinte e quatro horas. Podemos nem ter vontade de o ler naquele momento ou pode acontecer que, com a pressa, nos passe despercebida a única coisa que tinha para nos oferecer.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Gentleman in the Parlour: A Record of a Journey from Rangoon to Haiphong

“He had the aloofness of manner you often find in those who have lived much alone in unfrequented places...they seem always to hold something back. They have a life in themselves that they keep apart...this hidden life is the only one that signifies to them. And no and then their eyes betray the weariness with the social round into which hazard or the fear of seeming odd has for a moment forced them. They seem then to long for the monotonous solitude of some place of their predilection where they can be once more alone with the reality they have found.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Gentleman in the Parlour: A Record of a Journey from Rangoon to Haiphong

“El arte es la naturaleza vista a traves de una personalidad”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Gentleman in the Parlour: A Record of a Journey from Rangoon to Haiphong

“Most of the gods that the world has seen have made a somewhat frantic claim that men should have faith in them, and have threatened with dreadful penalties such as could not (whatever their good will) believe. There is something pathetic in the violence with which they denounce those who thwart them in the bestowal of the great gifts they have to offer. They seem deep in their hearts to have felt that it was the faith of others that gave them divinity (as though, their godhead standing on an insecure foundation, every believer was as it were a stone to buttress it) and that the message they so ardently craved to deliver could only have its efficacy if they became god. And god they could only become if men believed in them. But Gautama made only the claim of the physician that you should give him a trial and judge him by results. He was more like the artist who does his work as best he can because to produce art is his function, and having offered his gift to all that are willing and able to take it, passes on to other work, shrugging his shoulders tolerantly if his gift is declined.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Gentleman in the Parlour: A Record of a Journey from Rangoon to Haiphong

“eschew”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Gentleman In The Parlour