Snake Pit Complex

Famous quotes containing the words snake, pit and/or complex:

    “The Gospel of the army is cunning, as of all other human activities. The wisdom of the snake under the meekness of the sheep is what wins out.
    The first Commandment is—never let them get anything on you—
    The second: Graft—get privileges others haven’t got—worm yourself into confidence
    The Third—seem neat and prosperous—as if you had money in the bank—”
    —John Dos Passos (1896–1970)

    “Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.”
    —Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)

    “When distant and unfamiliar and complex things are communicated to great masses of people, the truth suffers a considerable and often a radical distortion. The complex is made over into the simple, the hypothetical into the dogmatic, and the relative into an absolute.”
    —Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)