The Dissenters are destitute of all decorations that can please the outward Senses, what their Teachers can hope for from humane Assistance lies altogether in their own endeavours, and they have nothing to strengthen their Doctrine with (besides what they can say for it) but probity of Manners and exemplary Lives. — The Mischiefs That Ought to Be Apprehended from a Whig-Government, Anonymous, attributed to Bernard Mandeville, 1714

— Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson (Baroque Cycle, #1)