The Screwtape Letters

p. 116

The demon Screwtape writes of fashions in folly: ‘The horror of the Same Old Thing is one of the most valuable passions we have produced in the human heart–an endless source of heresies in religion, folly in counsel, infidelity in marriage, and in constancy in friendship.’ Fashion: ‘the outcry of each generation is against that vice of which it is least in danger. The game is to have them all running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat that is already nearly gunwale under.’ Cruel ages are put on guard against sentimentality, lecherous ones against Puritanism, etc.