"Down with the schoolmasters and down with the priests, down with the redeemers and down with sterile icons! Down with the era of messiahs and saviors, of shepherds put at the head of human herds! Down with the icons, the personifications in wood or in flesh of human ignorance and powerlessness; down with the icons which, dead or alive, attempt to assume the role of the directors of our lives, the depositories of eternal verities, the representatives of absolute ideas, the holders of religious or moral power over men."