Aging & Wisdom Quote by W. Somerset Maugham

Maugham doesn’t pitch old age as a consolation prize; he frames it as a rival aesthetic. The line is built like a quiet argument with the culture that markets youth as the only season worth living. “Different” is doing the heavy lifting: it concedes the obvious (the body slows, appetites change, certain doors close) while refusing the lazy conclusion that less energy equals less life. Then comes the sly pivot: “not less.” It’s not “greater,” not a sentimental reversal, just a cool equal sign. That restraint is quintessential Maugham - an ironist who distrusted grand claims, including the ones we make to comfort ourselves.

The intent feels polemical in a soft voice. By calling them “pleasures” rather than “virtues” or “wisdom,” he dodges the pious rhetoric that often surrounds aging. He’s not asking for respect; he’s asserting enjoyment. Subtext: youth is loud and immediate, but it’s also frantic, insecure, hungry for validation. Old age, at its best, trades velocity for clarity: fewer illusions to maintain, fewer performances required, more permission to be exact about what you like.

Context matters. Maugham lived through two world wars and watched empires thin out and fashions turn over. As a playwright and novelist who anatomized desire with clinical poise, he knew that pleasure isn’t one thing - it’s a portfolio. The line reads like a writer’s defense of a later-life craft: the pleasure of watching, of editing, of not being easily impressed. It’s an argument for shifting the metric, not lowering the bar.