Satan is real

Preacher, tell them that Satan is real too. You can hear him in songs that give praise to idols and sinful things of this world. You can see him in the destruction of homes torn apart. I know that Satan is real. For once I had a happy home; I was loved and respected by my family; I was looked upon as a leader in my community. And then Satan came into my life, I grew selfish and un-neighbourly. My friends turned against me. And finally my home was broken apart. My children took their path into a world of sin.

Yes, preacher, it’s sweet to know that God is real. And to know that in him all things are possible. And we know that heaven is a real place, where joy shall never end. But sinner friends, if you’re here today, Satan is real too, and hell is a real place. A place of everlasting punishment.

The Louvin Brothers, 'Satan is Real', Satan is Real (1959), 1.11 - 2.24

Votaries initiated in the orgies of Dionysus ran about in goat-skins, mangling hounds in Bacchic frenzy

Accordingly during the whole period of his [Valens'] reign the altar fire was lit, libations and sacrifices were offered to idols, public feasts were celebrated in the forum, and votaries initiated in the orgies of Dionysus ran about in goat-skins, mangling hounds in Bacchic frenzy, and generally behaving in such a way as to show the iniquity of their master. When the right faithful Theodosius found all these evils he pulled them up by the roots, and consigned them to oblivion.

Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Ecclesiastical History V.21.4-5, tr. NPNF

If Keith Richards is running your intervention, you're in trouble

Keith sincerely feared Gram [Parsons] was doing an unhealthy amount of heroin. It hardly needs saying that if Keith Richards is running your intervention, you're in trouble

D.N. Meyer, Twenty thousand roads: the ballad of Gram Parsons (2007), 351

As objective as a panel of butchers telling us we should eat more meat

Everyone wants to live what they would see as the good life. Philosophers have had plenty to say about what this comprises, but their answers have tended to reveal an unsurprising bias. As people who value thought and contemplation, they have tended to come up with the idea that the good life is one of thought and contemplation. For some reason this answer has been granted a great deal of respect, even though it looks as objective as a panel of butchers telling us we should eat more meat.

J. Baggini, Welcome to Everytown (2007), 96-97

Pounded to death by the thunder of its own prosperity

The once ancient, free, and Hanseatic city of Hamburg, now almost pounded to death by the thunder of its own prosperity

J. Le Carré, Smiley's People (1979), 27

For fifty years the world has talked of, condemned, and executed Robespierre

For fifty years the world has talked of, condemned, and executed Robespierre. Men and women, who have barely heard the names of Pitt and Fox, who know not whether Metternich is a man or a river, or one of the United States, speak of Robespierre as of a thing accursed. They know, at any rate, what he was--the demon of the revolution; the source of the fountain of blood with which Paris was deluged; the murderer of the thousands whose bodies choked the course of the Loire and the Rhone. Who knows not enough of Robespierre to condemn him?

...

Has it not been proved to us that crooked-backed Richard was a good and politic King; and that the iniquities of Henry VIII are fabulous? whereas the agreeable predilections of our early youth are disturbed by our hearing that glorious Queen Bess, and learned King James, were mean, bloodthirsty, and selfish.

A. Trollope, The Vendee (1850), Kindle ed. loc 4399 and 4405

But rebellion and hell-fire are synonomous

"But rebellion and hell-fire are synonomous," said the priest, "and loyalty is the road to Paradise

A. Trollope, The Vendee (1850), Kindle ed. loc. 637