The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other. – Francis Bacon
Mankind are an incorrigible race. Give them but bugbears and idols — it is all that they ask; the distinctions of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, of good and evil, are worse than indifferent to them. – William Hazlitt
