A Quote by W. Somerset Maugham

We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.

W. Somerset Maugham

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Defects Friends Know Merits Our Rather Than

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

Constant success shows us but one side of the world. For as it surrounds us with friends who will tell us only our merits, so it silences those enemies from whom alone we can learn our defects.

Charles Caleb Colton

We must sometimes bear with little defects in others, as we have, against our will, to bear with natural defects in ourselves. If we wish to keep peace with our neighbor, we should never remind anyone of his natural defects.

Philip Neri

But I'd rather help than watch. I'd rather have a heart than a mind. I'd rather expose too much than too little. I'd rather say hello to strangers than be afraid of them. I would rather know all this about myself than have more money than I need. I'd rather have something to love than a way to impress you.

Po Bronson

Like pictures, men should be judged by their merits and not by their defects.

Bainbridge Colby

A legislator must know how to take advantage of even the defects of those he wants to govern. The art consists in making others work rather than in wearing oneself out.

Napoleon Bonaparte

I very often compare relations between states to relations with people. Sometimes we are nicer to those we don't know well, who are not our friends, than we are to our friends, because with our friends we don't need to be nice all the time.

Jose Manuel Barroso

Music speaks of Platonic truth - the ideal river rather than the polluted reality, love as we dream it rather than we experience it, grief noble and uplifting rather than our distracted weeping. It is necessary to our survival and our sanity.

Pam Brown

We would often rather seem dutiful to others than to succeed in our duties; and often we would rather tell our friends that we have done them good than to do good in actuality.

Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable

I left college two months ago because it rewards conformity rather than independence, competition rather than collaboration, regurgitation rather than learning and theory rather than application. Our creativity, innovation and curiosity are schooled out of us.

Dale J. Stephens

Be persecuted, rather than be a persecutor. Be crucified, rather than be a crucifier. Be treated unjustly, rather than treat anyone unjustly. Be oppressed, rather than be an oppressor. Be gentle rather than zealous. Lay hold of goodness, rather than justice.

Isaac of Nineveh

Most complaints, you know, aren't won or lost on their own merits, but rather on larger issues--politics and the position of the planets.

Walter Wykes

A human group transforms itself into a crowd when it suddenly responds to a suggestion rather than to reasoning, to an image rather than to an idea, to an affirmation rather than to proof, to the repetition of a phrase rather than to arguments, to prestige rather than to competence.

Jean Francois Revel

The machine is impersonal, it takes the pride away from a piece of work, the individual merits and defects that go along with allwork that is not done by a machine--which is to say, its little bit of humanity.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Satan knows that the nature of humankind is to act out of how we feel rather than what we know. One of our most important defenses against satanic influence will be learning how to behave out of what we know is truth rather than what we feel.

Beth Moore

Those who, from the desire of our perfection, have the keenest eye far our faults generally compensate for it by taking a higher view of our merits than we deserve.

John Frederick Boyes

After thee accumulation of too much history we have lost our innocence, we cannot easily believe in any explanations. We describe rather than feel, we touch rather than explore, we lust rather than adore.

Genesis P-Orridge

A Quote by W. Somerset Maugham

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