'The desire of human estimation and distinction, and honor, of the admiration and applause of our fellow creatures, if we take it in its full comprehension, and in all its various modifications, from the thirst of glory to the dread of shame, is the passion by which the empire is by far the most general, and perhaps the authority the most commanding. Though its power be most conspicuous and least controllable in the higer classes of society, it seems, like some resistless conqueror, to spare neither age, nor sex, nor condition; and taking ten thousand shapes, insinuating itself under the most specious pretexts, and shelttering itself necessary under the most artful disguises, it winds its way in secret, when it dares not openly avow itself, and mixes all we think, and speak, and do. It is in some instances the determined and declared pursuit, and confessedly the main practical principle; but where this is not the case, it is not seldom the grand spring of action, and in the Beauty and the Author, no less than in the Soldier, it is often the master passion of the soul.'
William Wilberforce, A Practical View of Christianity, p.116.
