Wealth & Money Quote by W. Somerset Maugham

Maugham’s line dodges the easy moralism of “money can’t buy happiness” and goes for something cooler and sharper: money as insulation. Not luxury, not status, not even pleasure, but “just enough” to keep your self-respect intact and your choices unbought. The key word is dignity, which in Maugham’s world is never abstract. It’s practical: the ability to say no, to avoid petty humiliations, to refuse the small corruptions that creep in when you need someone else’s approval to pay the rent.

The sentence is built like a negotiation with the reader’s conscience. He starts by rejecting “wealth,” then immediately replaces it with a more defensible demand. “To work unhampered” frames financial security not as idleness but as artistic or personal freedom: a playwright’s fantasy of writing what he wants without chasing patrons, trends, or moral gatekeepers. The virtues he lists - generous, frank, independent - are doing double duty. They read like character traits, but they’re also economic conditions. Generosity costs money. Frankness costs opportunities. Independence costs relationships.

Maugham, who knew both commercial success and the brittleness of social respectability, is letting the mask slip: the celebrated virtues of sincerity and integrity are easier when you can afford them. The subtext isn’t cynicism so much as an unsentimental ethic. He isn’t excusing greed; he’s indicting a society that makes decency contingent on financial breathing room.