People can be induced to swallow anything, provided it is sufficiently seasoned with praise.
The ancients, sir, are the ancients, and we are the people of today.
You are my peace, my solace, my salvation.
What! Would you make no distinction between hypocrisy and devotion? Would you give them the same names, and respect the mask as you do the face? Would you equate artifice and sincerity? Confound appearance with truth? Regard the phantom as the very person? Value counterfeit as cash?
I prefer an interesting vice to a virtue that bores.
Although I am a pious man, I am not the less a man.