In former days the pressure from clergy, friars, and inquisitors was so great that the machine of faith burst into a thousand pieces, and there is no one now who can fit the pieces together, which require the co-operation of all.

And that was a piece of good luck, friend Don Martin; a century more of religious intolerance and we should have been like those Mussulmen in Africa, who live in barbarism on account of their excessive bigotry, after having been the civilising Arabs of Cordoba and Granada." "Do you know," said the young curate, "why Catholicism has held up its appearances of power?
It is because from ancient times, in all Latin countries, it has possessed itself of every avenue through which human life must pass." "It is true, no religion has been so cautious as ours, or has ambushed itself better to entrap men.

None has chosen with such certainty in the time of power the positions it can hold strongly in its decadence.
It is impossible to move without stumbling against her.

She knows of old that man as long as he is healthy, in the plenitude of his vital strength, is by instinct irreligious.

When he lives comfortable the so-called eternal life concerns him very little.