I know as well as any one, [the devil] is an adversary, whom if we resist, he will fly from us--but I seldom resist him at all; from a terror, that though I may conquer, I may still get a hurt in the combat--soinstead of thinking to make him fly, I generally fly myself.
Laurence Sterne (1823). ““The” Novels Of Sterne, Goldsmith, Dr. Johnson, Mackenzie, Horace Walpole, And Clara Reeve: 5”, p.251