A Quote by W. Somerset Maugham

Art, unless it leads to right action, is no more than the opium of an intelligentsia.

W. Somerset Maugham

Quote Topics

Action Art Leads More Opium Right Right Action Than Unless

Quote Author

W. Somerset Maugham
British - Novelist
January 25, 1874 - December 16, 1965

I would like to emphasize again that right prayer leads to right action, that faith without works is dead. An excellent way to put thoughts into action is to write a letter for peace.

Peace Pilgrim

...guilt leads to righteous action, but rarely is it the right action.

Abraham Verghese

An action will not be right unless the will be right; for from thence is the action derived. Again, the will will not be right unless the disposition of the mind be right; for from thence comes the will.

Seneca the Younger

Thoughts are ephemeral, they evaporate in the moment they occur, unless they are given action and material form. Wishes and intentions, the same. Meaningless, unless they impel you to one choice or another, some deed or course of action, however insignificant. Thoughts that lead to action can be dangerous. Thoughts that do not, mean less than nothing.

Ann Leckie

Then, if action is possible or necessary, you take action or rather right action happens through you. Right action is action that is appropriate to the whole. When the action is accomplished, the alert, spacious stillness remains.

Eckhart Tolle

That which is received from without can be compared with knowledge. It leads to believing, which is seldom strong enough to motivate to action. That which is confirmed from within after it is contacted from without, or that which is directly perceived from within (which is my way) can be compared with wisdom. It leads to a knowing, and action goes right along with it.

Peace Pilgrim

Here's your first problem," he said, pointing at a sentence. "'Religion is the opium of the people.' Well, I don't know about people, but I think you'll find that the opium of pirates is actual opium.

Gideon Defoe

If the Revolution has the right to destroy bridges and art monuments whenever necessary, it will stop still less from laying its hand on any tendency in art which, no matter how great its achievement in form, threatens to disintegrate the revolutionary environment or to arouse the internal forces of the Revolution, that is, the proletariat, the peasantry and the intelligentsia, to a hostile opposition to one another. Our standard is, clearly, political, imperative and intolerant.

Leon Trotsky

I don't listen to punk any more, unless it's right before I play. Not that I don't like it, it's nostalgic. But, it's for kids and it should be... it's not art, it's expression.

Tom DeLonge

I don't listen to punk any more, unless it's right before I play. Not that I don't like it, it's nostalgic. But, it's for kids and it should be it's not art, it's expression.

Tom DeLonge

My job is essentially just corralling more and more and more facts and information, and occasionally seeing whether that leads to some action.

Warren Buffett

Ostwald was a great protagonist and an inspiring teacher. He had the gift of saying the right thing in the right way. When we consider the development of chemistry as a whole, Ostwald's name like Abou ben Adhem's leads all the rest ... Ostwald was absolutely the right man in the right place. He was loved and followed by more people than any chemist of our time.

Wilder Dwight Bancroft

Look in your own heart. Unless I'm crazy, right now a still small voice is piping up, telling you as it has ten thousand times, the calling that is yours and yours alone. You know it. No one has to tell you. And unless I'm crazy, you're no closer to taking action on it than you were yesterday or will be tomorrow. You think Resistance isn't real? Resistance will bury you.

Steven Pressfield

The more a book is like an opium pipe, the more the Chinaman reader is satisfied with it and tends to discuss the quality of the drug rather than its lethargic effects.

Julio Cortazar

It is difficult to live without opium after having known it because it is difficult, after knowing opium, to take earth seriously. And unless one is a saint, it is difficult to live without taking earth seriously.