good ol' dickens

"Publicly and privately, it were much better for the age in which he lived that he and the legion of whom he was one were designedly bad than indifferent and purposeless. It is the drifting icebergs, setting with any current anywhere, that wreck the ships.
When the Devil goeth about like a roaring lion, he goeth about in a shape which few but savages and hunters are attracted. But when he is trimmed, smoothed, and vanished, according to the mode; when he is aweary of vice, and aweary of virtue, used up as to brimstone, and used up as to bliss; then, whether he take to the serving out of red tape or to the kindling of red fire, he is the very Devil." (Hard Times p. 188)