Our systems, perhaps, are nothing more than an unconscious apology for our faults –a gigantic scaffolding whose object is to hide from us our favorite sin. – Henri Frederic Amiel

Men never do evil so thoroughly and cheerfully as when they do it for conscience sake. РBlaise Pascal, Pens̩es, 1670

Some things have to be believed to be seen. – Ralph Hodgson, The Skylark and Other Poems

We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were implanted in his imagination, no matter how utterly his reason may reject them. – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Poet at the Breakfast Table, 1872