Daily Inspiration Quote by W. Somerset Maugham

The line lands like a doctor’s blunt question after years of ignored symptoms: if you keep living by the same internal script, don’t act surprised when the plot never changes. Maugham’s trick is to make “beliefs” sound both intimate and bureaucratic, like a set of regulations you’ve agreed to without reading. He doesn’t threaten catastrophe; he threatens continuity. That’s the sharper fear. Disaster feels dramatic. Repetition feels like a life sentence you signed yourself.

The second sentence is where Maugham’s playwright instincts show. “Is that good news?” turns moral advice into a courtroom cross-examination. It’s not a sermon; it’s a trapdoor. The question forces a reckoning without offering the comfort of an answer. If you say yes, you’ve confessed you’re fine with stagnation and can’t keep performing dissatisfaction. If you say no, you’ve admitted agency exists and the only thing missing is the courage to renegotiate your beliefs.

Context matters: Maugham wrote in a world where “character” was often treated as destiny and class scripts were rigidly policed. His work regularly exposes the quiet bargains people make to stay respectable, safe, or admired. Here, “beliefs” aren’t lofty philosophy; they’re the everyday assumptions that govern who you think you’re allowed to be, what you think you deserve, and which risks you’ve preemptively forbidden yourself.

It’s cynicism with a purpose: not hope, exactly, but the grim relief of realizing the prison door is partly self-installed.