"No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul"
About this Quote
Maugham lands the blade where polite society least expects it: not on crude vanity, but on sanctified self-importance. “No egoism is so insufferable” is a deliberately totalizing claim, the kind that doesn’t argue so much as dare you to object. Then comes the twist of the screw: the Christian’s ego isn’t about money, beauty, or status. It’s “with regard to his soul” - the invisible asset that can’t be audited, yet is endlessly advertised in tone, restraint, and moral certainty.
The intent is less anti-faith than anti-performance. Maugham is attacking a particular psychological posture: the believer who treats salvation as a private portfolio and conscience as a luxury good. The subtext is that spiritual life, framed as a personal rescue mission, can become narcissism with better branding. Worrying about your soul sounds humble, even penitential; in practice it can slide into an obsessive self-curation where other people exist mainly as temptations, tests, or cautionary tales.
As a playwright shaped by late-Victorian respectability and its hypocrisies, Maugham knew how morality becomes theater: virtue signaled through refined disgust, kindness rationed to the “deserving,” sin imagined as something other people do. The line works because it exposes the transactional logic beneath piety. When the soul is the main project, the world becomes a backdrop - and nothing is more grating than someone convinced their inner life makes them the hero of everyone else’s story.
The intent is less anti-faith than anti-performance. Maugham is attacking a particular psychological posture: the believer who treats salvation as a private portfolio and conscience as a luxury good. The subtext is that spiritual life, framed as a personal rescue mission, can become narcissism with better branding. Worrying about your soul sounds humble, even penitential; in practice it can slide into an obsessive self-curation where other people exist mainly as temptations, tests, or cautionary tales.
As a playwright shaped by late-Victorian respectability and its hypocrisies, Maugham knew how morality becomes theater: virtue signaled through refined disgust, kindness rationed to the “deserving,” sin imagined as something other people do. The line works because it exposes the transactional logic beneath piety. When the soul is the main project, the world becomes a backdrop - and nothing is more grating than someone convinced their inner life makes them the hero of everyone else’s story.
Quote Details
| Topic | Faith |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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