The virtue of Paganism was strength: the virtue of Christianity is obedience.
Few persons have courage enough to appear as good as they really are.
Examples would indeed be excellent things were not people so modest that none will set, and so vain that none will follow them.
Every Irishman, the saying goes, has a potato in his head.
Man without religion is the creature of circumstances: Religion is above all circumstances, and will lift him up above them.
Nothing is farther than earth from heaven; nothing is nearer than heaven to earth.