Pascal Bateman

“Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out.”
― Robert Graves, Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina

“Bertrand Russell, too old for military service, but an ardent pacifist (a rare combination), turned sharply on me one afternoon and asked: ‘Tell me, if a company of your men were brought along to break a strike of munition makers, and the munition makers refused to go back to work, would you order the men to fire?’
‘Yes, if everything else failed. It would be no worse than shooting Germans, really.’
He asked in surprise: ‘Would your men obey you?’
‘They loathe munition-workers, and would be only too glad of a chance to shoot a few. They think that they’re all skrim-shankers.’
‘But they realize that the war’s all wicked nonsense?’
‘Yes, as well as I do.’
He could not understand my attitude.”
― Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That

“School taught me only to read and write. And that sliver of learning set me on the surest road to starving to death in honesty and ignorance. You were the first to open my eyes to widespread corruption. To have understood that the only forces that drive humanity are thieving and swindling - that’s real intelligence. And you didn’t even go to school.”
― Albert Cossery, The Colors of Infamy

“I'm physically nauseated by commonplace humanity, which is the only kind there is.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet