Late at e'en, drinkin'the wine, And ere they paid the lawin', They set a combat them between, To fight it at the dawin'. 'O stayat hame, my noble lord, O stay at hame, my marrow! My cruel brother will you betray On the dowie houms o' Yarrow!'

-Ballads
'The Dowie Houms o' Yarrow'.

   Le mariage doit incessamment combattre un monstre qui de¤ v ore tout: l'habitude. Marriage should always combat the monster that devours everything: habit.

-Balzac, Honore¤   de
  Physiologie du mariage.

The Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of theThames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pupils might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctityand truth of the revelation of Mahomet.

-Gibbon, Edward
^88  The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch.52.