"One of the falsest of proverbs is that you must lie on the bed that you have made. The experience of life shows that people are constantly doing things which must lead to disaster, and yet by some chance manage to evade the result of their folly."

W. Somerset Maugham Literature See all quotes by W. Somerset Maugham →

React to this quote

More by W. Somerset Maugham

“After all, a man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing.”

“I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.”

“Conscience is the guardian in the individual of the rules which the community has evolved for its own preservation.”

“He was the kind of man with whom one would have hesitated to pass a lonely evening, but with whom one might cheerfully have looked forward to spending six months.”

“You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humour teaches tolerance, and the humorist, with a smile and perhaps a sigh, is more likely to shrug his shoulders than to condemn.”

“The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water to run down the hill.”

Resonant Thoughts

"The fate of those of their neighbours who had already rebelled and had been subdued was no lesson to them; their own prosperity could not dissuade them from affronting danger; but blindly confident in…"

— Thucydides

Literature-500–-420

#philosophy

"Many of my male colleagues who have suffered imprisonment for their part in the democracy movement have spoken of the great debt of gratitude they owe their womenfolk, particularly to their wives who …"

— Aung San Suu Kyi

Politics1945

#justice

"Go back again, now you have seen us, and your outward eyes have learned that in spite of all the infallible maxims of your day there is yet a time of rest in store for the world, when mastery has chan…"

— William Morris

Literature1834–1896

#life

"Major parties have lived more for patronage than for principles; their goal has been to bind together a sufficiently large coalition of diverse interests to get into power; and once in power, to arran…"

— Richard Hofstadter

Education1916–1970

#life