"Our religion [Christianity] has glorified humble and contemplative more than active men. It has then placed the highest good in humility, abjectness, and contempt of things human; the other [Roman religion] placed it in greatness of spirit, strength of body, and all other things capable of making men very strong. And if our religion asks that you have the strength in yourself, it wishes you to be capable more of suffering than of doing something strong. This mode of life thus seems to have rendered the world weak” -- Niccolo Machiavelli