A Quote by W. Somerset Maugham
It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late. It does not improve the temper.
Related Quotes
We discover too late that we have turned a blind eye to the extinction of a species that is essential to the balance of life in a particular context. Or we discover too late that the importation of a foreign life-form, animal or vegetable, has upset local ecosystems, damaging soil or neighbouring life-forms. We discover that we have come near the end of supplies-of fossil-fuels for example -on which we have built immense structures of routine expectation.
I thought that if the right time gets missed, if one has refused or been refused something for too long, it's too late, even if it is finally tackled with energy and received with joy. Or is there no such thing as "too late"? Is there only "late," and is "late" always better than "never"? I don't know.
Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.
I have tried," I said, "but he does not believe me. It is too late for that now" (it is always too late for truth, I thought).
It's not the side-effects of the cocaine - I'm thinking that it must be love. It's too late to be grateful, It's too late to be hateful, It's too late to be late again, The European cannon is here.
Too late, too late, juice pouring does not a kind soul make, and I killed you.
Wars and temper tantrums are the makeshifts of ignorance; regrets are illuminations come too late.
Or is there no such thing as 'too late'? Is there only 'late' and is 'late' always better than 'never'? I don't know.
In truth, I am nothing but a plodding mediocrity — please observe, a plodding mediocrity — for a mere mediocrity does not go very far, but a plodding one gets quite a distance. There is joy in that success, and a distinction can come from courage, fidelity and industry.
We live, understandably enough, with the sense of urgency; our clock, like Baudelaire's, has had the hands removed and bears the legend, "It is later than you think." But with us it is always a little too late for mind, yet never too late for honest stupidity; always a little too late for understanding, never too late for righteous, bewildered wrath; always too late for thought, never too late for naïve moralizing. We seem to like to condemn our finest but not our worst qualities by pitting them against the exigency of time.
Very often in everyday life one sees that by losing one's temper with someone who has already lost his, one does not gain anything but only sets out upon the path of stupidity. He who has enough self-control to stand firm at the moment when the other person is in a temper, wins in the end. It is not he who has spoken a hundred words aloud who has won; it is he who has perhaps spoken only one word.
The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, said, 'Fox hunting is cruel and I therefore want it banned.' He went on to discuss the option of controlling foxes by shooting with a rifle. He suggested that that method was preferred in the Burns report. However, nowhere in that report, so far as I can see, does any conclusion suggest that fox hunting is cruel. I defy the noble Lord to find a reference in the Burns report that says that fox hunting is cruel. It does not say that anywhere. Therefore, the only conclusion to draw is that fox hunting is not cruel.
The language 'It's too late' is very unsuitable for most environmental issues. It's too late for the dodo and for people who've starved to death already, but it's not too late to prevent an even bigger crisis. The sooner we act on the environment, the better.
The language "it's too late" is very unsuitable for most environmental issues. It's too late for the dodo and for people who've starved to death already, but it's not too late to prevent an even bigger crisis. The sooner we act on the environment, the better.
Everybody knows I got a temper. It's not a temper temper-not an off-the-field temper. It's a competitive temper, wanting to do good. But as far as being a guy who disrupts a lot of things, who doesn't want to listen? Nah, man. That's false. That's false because I'm excelling.
I think that fear does come into it in some respect in the sense of when I lost my temper I didn't hide behind a bush on it in respect to the times that I did lose my temper. But you know the quality that I had when I lost my temper, I never, ever brought it back again.
Related Authors
Charles Bukowski Quotes
American
Novelist
Charles Dickens Quotes
English
Novelist
Chuck Palahniuk Quotes
American
Novelist
Ernest Hemingway Quotes
American
Novelist
George Eliot Quotes
British
Novelist
George Orwell Quotes
British
Novelist
George R. R. Martin Quotes
American
Novelist
Jane Austen Quotes
British
Novelist
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
German
Novelist
Margaret Atwood Quotes
Canadian
Novelist
Nicholas Sparks Quotes
American
Novelist
Paulo Coelho Quotes
Brazilian
Novelist
Sarah Dessen Quotes
American
Novelist
Stephenie Meyer Quotes
American
Novelist
Veronica Roth Quotes
American
Novelist
Victor Hugo Quotes
French
Novelist