1. Only a mediocre person is always at his best. W. Somerset Maugham 

2. To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life. W. Somerset Maugham 

3. I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell... their heart's in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ. W. Somerset Maugham 

4. [from 1920s] 1941, W Somerset Maugham, Up at the Villa, Vintage 2004, page 44: ‘Some of us students protested against the Anschluss.’ 2001, Clive James, Even As We Speak: Anton Kuh […] was one of the Viennese coffee-house wits whose mastery of the brief