The truth is, if the Devil could only appear in church by attorney, and make the best statement that the facts would bear him out in doing on behalf of his special virtues, (what we commonly call vices,) the influence of good teachers would be much greater than it is.

For the arguments by which the Devil prevails are precisely the ones that the Devil-queller most rarely answers.

The way to argue down a vice is not to tell lies about it,--to say that it has no attractions, when everybody knows that it has,--but rather to let it make out its case just as it certainly will in the moment of temptation, and then meet it with the weapons furnished by the Divine armory.

Ithuriel did not spit the toad on his spear, you remember, but touched him with it, and the blasted angel took the sad glories of his true shape.

If he had shown fight then, the fair spirits would have known how to deal with him.
That all spasmodic cerebral action is an evil is not perfectly clear.