David Waldron

“Most of the gods that the world has seen have made a somewhat frantic claim that men should have faith in them, and have threatened with dreadful penalties such as could not (whatever their good will) believe. There is something pathetic in the violence with which they denounce those who thwart them in the bestowal of the great gifts they have to offer. They seem deep in their hearts to have felt that it was the faith of others that gave them divinity (as though, their godhead standing on an insecure foundation, every believer was as it were a stone to buttress it) and that the message they so ardently craved to deliver could only have its efficacy if they became god. And god they could only become if men believed in them. But Gautama made only the claim of the physician that you should give him a trial and judge him by results. He was more like the artist who does his work as best he can because to produce art is his function, and having offered his gift to all that are willing and able to take it, passes on to other work, shrugging his shoulders tolerantly if his gift is declined.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Gentleman in the Parlour: A Record of a Journey from Rangoon to Haiphong