Everyone is as God made him, and often a good deal worse. – Miguel de Cervantes

I was surprised just now at seeing a cobweb around a knocker; for it was not on the door of heaven. – Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers

I viewed my fellow man not as a fallen angel, but as a risen ape. – Desmond Morris, The Naked Ape

It is curious to note the old sea-margins of human thought! Each subsiding century reveals some new mystery; we build where monsters used to hide themselves. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Kavanagh, 1849