It was a beautiful lie that they had all been telling themselves—that you could have magic without monsters.

— Anne Ursu

Our society tends to regard as a sickness any mode of thought or behavior that is inconvenient for the system and this is plausible because when an individual doesn't fit into the system it causes pain to the individual as well as problems for the system. Thus, the manipulation of an individual to adjust him to the system is seen as a cure for a sickness and therefore as good.

— Theodore J. Kaczynski

Over-the-counter ‪‎drug‬ ‪‎abuse‬ or addiction was a problem that I observed at Mauna Kea

— Steven Magee

People who own the world outright for profit will have to be stopped by influence, by power, by us.

— Wendell Berry

Power is confusing for us, perhaps even terrifying, because our relationship with it had an unfortunate beginning. Someone in a position of power over us used and abused us… It seems as if power were something to be wielded, always at someone’s expense, usually our own.

— Maureen Brady

Power's not a chalice. It's a hammer. And it only does one thing. Power smashes. The subtext of all power is extortion. It's always the threat of force, of imprisonment, the threat of death. Always.

— Adam Skelter

[Refers to 121 children taken into care in Cleveland due to suspected abuse (1987) and later returned to their parents]Sue Richardson, the child abuse consultant at the heart of the crisis, watched as cases began to unravel: “All the focus started to fall on the medical findings; other supportive evidence, mainly which we held in the social services department, started to be screened out. A situation developed where the cases either were proven or fell on the basis of medical evidence alone. Other evidence that was available to the court, very often then, never got put. We would have had statement from the child, the social workers and the child psychologist’s evidence from interviewing. We would have evidence of prior concerns, either from social workers or teachers, about the child’s behavior or other symptoms that they might have been showing, which were completely aside from the medical findings. (Channel 4 1997) Ten years after the Cleveland crisis, Sue Richardson was adamant that evidence relating to children’s safety was not presented to the courts which subsequently returned those children to their parents: “I am saying that very clearly. In some cases, evidence was not put in the court. In other cases, agreements were made between lawyers not to put the case to the court at all, particularly as the crisis developed. Latterly, that children were sent home subject to informal agreements or agreements between lawyers. The cases never even got as far as the court. (Channel 4, 1997)” Nor is Richardson alone. Jayne Wynne, one of the Leeds pediatricians who had pioneered the use of RAD as an indicator of sexual abuse and who subsequently had detailed knowledge of many of the Cleveland children, remains concerned by the haphazard approach of the courts to their protection. I think the implication is that the children were left unprotected. The children who were being abused unfortunately returned to homes and the abuse may well have been ongoing. (Channel 4 1997)

— Heather Bacon

Security is not a license for people in authority to hide tactics they would never openly admit to using.

— John G. Hemry

Stand up for yourself. Never give any one permission to abuse you.

— Lailah Gifty Akita

The social havoc wreaked by unfettered economic greed comes to be interiorized as the personal weakness and irresponsibility of those principally affected.

— David Smail