God does not intend people, and does not like people, to be too good. He likes them neither too good nor too bad, but a little too bad is more venial… - Samuel Butler

If people like being deceived — and this can hardly be doubted — there can rarely have been a time during which they can have had more of the wish than now. The literary, scientific and religious worlds vie with one another in trying to gratify the public.

It is here that almost all religions go wrong. Their priests try to make us believe that they know more about the unseen world than those whose eyes are still blinded by the seen, can ever know--forgetting that while to deny the existence of an unseen kingdom is bad, to pretend that we know more about it than its bare existence is no better.

This poem [The Ancient Mariner] would not have taken so well if it had been called “The Old Sailor.”