"It is remarkable that among all the preachers there are so few moral teachers. The prophets are employed in excusing the ways of men. Most reverend seniors, the Illuminati of the age, tell me, with a gracious, reminiscent smile, betwixt an aspiration and a shudder, not to be too tender about these things - to lump all that - that is, make a lump of gold of it. The highest advice I have heard on these subjects was grovelling. The burden of it was - It is not worth your while to undertake to reform the world in this particular. Do not ask how your bread is buttered; it will make you sick if you do - and the like."
Henry David Thoreau,
1854
