The experience of life shows that people are constantly doing things which must lead to disaster, and yet by some chance manage to evade the result of their folly.
 W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence (1919). copy citation

add
Author W. Somerset Maugham
Source The Moon and Sixpence
Topic disaster experience
Date 1919
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/222/222-h/222-h.htm

Context

“there was no reasoning with him. I thought it probable enough that Blanche Stroeve would not continue to find life with Strickland tolerable, but one of the falsest of proverbs is that you must lie on the bed that you have made. The experience of life shows that people are constantly doing things which must lead to disaster, and yet by some chance manage to evade the result of their folly. When Blanche quarrelled with Strickland she had only to leave him, and her husband was waiting humbly to forgive and forget. I was not prepared to feel any great sympathy for her. "You see, you don't love her,"” source