Piety and corruption go together like hot dogs and mustard. They have to. No one can fulfill the demands of piety; as a daily demand, it is inhuman. So it inspires the opposite—just for the sheer health of the body, if not the soul. – Norman Mailer, “Primitive Man, Art and Science, Evil and Judgment,” The Spooky A

Modesty and unselfishness – these are virtues which men praise – and pass by. – André Maurois, Ariel, 1924

To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them. – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg