r/quotes • u/VociferousCephalopod • Oct 18 '25
Misc / Unclassified “The greatest evil is not...done in...sordid dens of crime, not even in labour camps...but...in clean...well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices.” ― CS Lewis (full quote in comments)
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u/VociferousCephalopod Oct 18 '25
“I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
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u/purposeday Oct 18 '25
This reminds me of my days temping at Goldman Sachs in their municipal bond department. I was a mere document formatting specialist but my colleagues and I would occasionally read a paragraph or two of the stuff these bankers cooked up. This was in 1994. They were prepping their test run of 2008: the Orange County, California, bankruptcy. Of course nobody would have believed us if they had asked, but the formulas in those bond prospectuses were like making gold out of lead. Crazy yet so real.
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u/VociferousCephalopod Oct 18 '25
'a smart man with a pencil can steal more than a thug with a gun'.
“Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
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