Daily Inspiration Quote by W. Somerset Maugham

Humorous resignation is Maugham at his most elegantly unsentimental: a prescription for living that refuses both melodrama and false hope. The line lands because it marries two instincts that usually get cast as opposites. Resignation concedes the world will not be negotiated into fairness; humor insists you still get to keep your footing inside that unfairness. Put together, they form a kind of psychological furniture - a posture you can actually sit in.

The intent feels practical, almost stagecraft. As a playwright who watched people perform themselves for love, money, status, Maugham understood that most suffering isn’t caused by tragedy alone but by the insistence that life should make sense on demand. “Comfortable” is the tell: he’s not chasing heroism or transcendence, he’s defending livability. The phrase “frame of mind” makes it sound like an interior set you arrange deliberately, not a mood you wait for. In Maugham’s world, stoicism isn’t a marble statue; it’s a well-tailored suit.

The subtext is quietly acidic. Humor here isn’t whimsy; it’s the sly recognition of patterns - vanity, self-deception, bad timing - that repeat no matter how earnestly we swear we’ll be different. Resignation isn’t defeat; it’s the refusal to keep paying emotional rent to things you can’t change. In a century marked by war and collapsed certainties, Maugham offers a survival ethic: don’t confuse bitterness with intelligence, and don’t confuse optimism with courage. Keep your gaze clear, your expectations modest, and your laugh intact.