"This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments."
Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759
"When you speak these things, they will not listen. When you call to them, they will not answer. 'This is the nation that would not listen to the Lord their God. Truth has perished among them. Raise up a dirge on the barren heights, for the Lord has rejected and abandoned them under His wrath. For the Judeans have done what is contemptible in My sight.' This is the Lord’s declaration. 'They have set up detestable things in the house that is called by My name — and defiled it.'" Jeremiah 7:27-30