A man is more likely to be a good man if he has learned goodness through the love of God than through a perusal of Herbert Spencer.
 W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage (1915). copy citation

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Author W. Somerset Maugham
Source Of Human Bondage
Topic goodness love
Date 1915
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/351/pg351-images.html

Context

“It is like one of those drugs you gentlemen use in medicine which carries another in solution: it is of no efficacy in itself, but enables the other to be absorbed. You take your morality because it is combined with religion; you lose the religion and the morality stays behind. A man is more likely to be a good man if he has learned goodness through the love of God than through a perusal of Herbert Spencer." This was contrary to all Philip's ideas. He still looked upon Christianity as a degrading bondage that must be cast away at any cost; it was connected subconsciously in his mind with the dreary services in the cathedral at Tercanbury, and the long hours of boredom in the cold church at Blackstable;” source