Daily Inspiration Quote by W. Somerset Maugham

Money, in Maugham's hands, isn't merely power; it's stagecraft. The image is theatrical and humiliating: not a lever or a tool, but a string. Strings imply choreography from above, movements that only look voluntary. And the puppet metaphor lands with special bite coming from a playwright, someone professionally invested in the illusion of choice. He knows how easily an audience confuses motive with character; he also knows how often motive is just rent.

The phrase "sardonic destiny" is the tell. Maugham refuses the comforting idea that fate is noble, moral, or even tragic in the classical sense. Fate is snide. It smirks while it pulls. By pairing destiny with money, he drags metaphysics down into accounting: what looks like romance, principle, ambition, even virtue can be traced to a budget line. That cynicism isn't lazy; it's diagnostic. It suggests modern life has replaced gods and kings with a quieter sovereign: the market, operating with the same absolute authority but none of the grandeur.

The intent is to puncture respectable narratives people tell about themselves. Maugham wrote in a world where class mobility was tantalizing but conditional, where empire and social status were propped up by inheritance, patronage, and financial panic. The subtext is that "freedom" is often just a well-funded performance, and morality itself can be rigged by whoever holds the purse. Money doesn't just influence decisions; it scripts them, then calls it human nature.