Na aldeia de Montaillou, durante as perseguições medievais, os inquisidores pediram que uma mulher dissesse de quem tinha tirado suas dúvidas heréticas sobre inferno e ressureição. Ela deveria saber que corria o terrível perigo de uma morte lenta nas mãos dos devotos, mas respondeu que não as tinha tirado de ninguém, e sim chegado a elas por conta própria. (Você frequentemente ouve os crentes louvarem a simplicidade de seu rebanho, mas não no caso dessas espontâneas e conscientes sanidade e lucidez, cujos autores foram reprimidos e queimados em número maior do que somos capazes de imaginar.
For preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick. Jonathan Swift | 1729 It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in stroling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants who, as they grow up, either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country, to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes. I think it is agreed by all parties, that this prodigious number of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present dep...
