You will have to learn many tedious things ... which you will forget the moment you have passed your final examination, but in Anatomy it is better to have learned and lost than never to have learned at all.

       - W. Somerset Maugham

         - Of Human Bondage (1915)

        This month we continue in a literary vein (see July). William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) was born in Paris, the son of a lawyer attached to the British embassy. Orphaned at age 10, he was raised by an aunt and clergyman uncle, educated at Heidelberg, and then trained as a physician at St. Thomas's Hospital in London. Maugham practiced only briefly, publishing his first novel in 1897 (Liza of Lameth) and becoming a successful playwright by 1907. Among his more famous plays are Our Betters (1917), The Circle (1921), The Constant Wife (1926) and For Services Rendered (1932). His best known novel is a thinly-disguised autobiography, Of Human Bondage (1915), from which this month's quote is taken. [The lead character, Philip Carey, attends medical school, as did Maugham himself.] Other novels include The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Cakes and Ale (1930) and The Razors Edge (1944). Maugham also penned numerous short stories.

        Despite his commercial success (Maughm had 4 plays running simultaneously in London in 1908), Maugham characterized his work in his autobiography (The Summing Up, 1938) as standing "in the first row of the second-raters", an opinion largely endorsed by literary critics.

Abstracted from The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 5th Edition, 1985

Other famous Maugham quotes vaguely related to anatomy [and the Anatomy Quote of the Month] include:

"Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it."

"The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit."

If you have a favorite quote concerning anatomy or by a famous anatomist, please e-mail it to the FIU Anatomy Home Page


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