To be without music was, for the ancient Greeks, to be already dead... Ancient Greece was a culture of song. - Thomas Cahill

The worldview that underlay the New Testament was so different from that of the Greeks and the Romans as to be almost its opposite. It was a worldview that stressed not excellence of public achievement but the adventure of a personal journey with God... by imitating God's justice and mercy.

Whether or not Freud was right when he muttered in exasperation that the Irish were the only people who could not be helped by psychoanalysis, there can be no doubt of one thing: the Irish will never change.

If we are to be saved, it will not be by Romans but by saints.