W. Somerset Maugham? Popular Influencer? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: A popular modern influencer has recommended outsourcing all the unpleasant or unimportant tasks of life. I was reminded of a saying I heard many years ago:
Life is too short to do anything for oneself that one can pay others to do for one.
I do not recall who said this. The person was probably wealthy. Would you please trace this quotation?
Reply from Quote Investigator: W. Somerset Maugham was a highly successful dramatist, novelist, and short story writer. His novels included “Of Human Bondage”, “The Moon and Sixpence”, and “The Razor’s Edge”. In 1938 Maugham published “The Summing Up” which presented his ideas about life and art. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
I have travelled; I live in a house with a view of the sea, silent and apart from other habitations, in the middle of a garden, with spacious rooms. I have always thought life too short to do anything for oneself that one can pay others to do for one and I have been rich enough to afford myself the luxury of only doing for myself what I alone can do.
I have been able to entertain my friends and to help people whom I wanted to help. All this I owe to the favour of the public.
The original phrasing of the quotation differed from the common current version. The phrase “I have always thought” has been excised, and the word “is” has been inserted into modern instances.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
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