Quotes: Institutions. Insult.

The idea in bold-face print is a summary of the quote. The number after the topic is the page on which the quote was found.

Institutions
Institutions 413 The enemy is not individuals but institutions. "Not individuals but institutions are the enemies, and they most afflict the disciples who the most generously serve them…insinuate their tyranny under a hundred guises, and polite names…and the only defense against them, Carol beheld, is unembittered laughter." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Institutions 27 Office politics. "The U.S.O. troupes were sent by General P.P. Peckem, who had moved his headquarters up to Rome and had nothing better to do while he schemed against General Dreeedle." Heller, Catch-22.

Institutions 36 The enemy of institutions is the freedom to question them. "Group headquarters was alarmed for there was no telling what people might find out once they felt free to ask whatever questions they wanted to." Heller, Catch-22.


Institutions 95 A career of signing documents. "In the long run, Major Major was grateful for the official documents that came to his desk, for sitting in his office signing them all day long was a lot better than sitting in his office all day long not signing them…." Heller, Catch-22.

Institutions, home 98 We are smothered by jostling egos. "…where self-respect is smothered by crowded, jostling egos." August Strindberg. Portable Curmudgeon.

Insult
Insult 37 To youth, the aged are worthless. "Marianne on thirty-five-year-old Col. Brandon: 'Colonel Brandon is certainly younger than Mrs. Jennings, but he is old enough to be my father; and if he were ever animated enough to be in love, must have long outlived every sensation of the kind…did you not hear him complain of the rheumatism? and is not that the commonest infirmity of declining life?' " Austen, Sense and Sensibility.

Insult 38 Wearing flannel waistcoats means you are old. “But he [Col. Brandon] talked of flannel waistcoats,” said Marianne; “and with me a flannel waistcoat is invariably connected with aches, cramps, rheumatisms, and every species of ailment that can afflict the old and the feeble.” Austen, Sense and Sensibility.

Insult 50 Portrait of a nonentity. “Brandon is just the kind of man,” said Willoughby… “whom everybody speaks well of, and nobody cares about; whom all are delighted to see, and nobody remembers to talk to.” Austen, Sense and Sensibility.

Insult 204 People who have nothing to do think nothing of intruding on the privacy and activities of others. "Marianne on Col. Brandon: 'A man who has nothing to do with his own time has no conscience in his intrusion on that of others.' " Austen, Sense and Sensibility.