Man is always a little at fault, that’s all.

So we have this system of thought. Now, I say that this system has a fault in it — a systemic fault. It's not a fault here, there or there, but it is a fault that is all throughout the system. Can you picture that? It's everywhere and nowhere. You may say 'I see a problem here, so I will bring my thought to bear on this problem'. But 'my' thought is part of the system. It has the same fault as the fault I'm trying to look at, or a similar fault. We have this systemic fault; and you can see that this is what has been going on in all these problems of the world — such as the problems that the fragmentation of nations has produced. We say: 'Here is a fault. Something has gone wrong.' But in dealing with it, we use the same kind of fragmentary thought that produced the problem, just a somewhat different version of it; therefore it's not going to help, and it may make things worse.

...in his gambling, he had one besetting weakness — faith in a system; and this made his damnation certain.

It's too easy to criticize a man when he's out of favour, and to make him shoulder the blame for everybody else's mistakes.

A bad action is always bad at the time when it is done, no matter what happens afterwards. Every time we let ourselves believe for unworthy reasons, we weaken our powers of self-control, of doubting, of judicially and fairly weighing evidence. We all suffer severely enough from the maintenance and support of false beliefs and the fatally wrong actions which they lead to, and the evil born when one such belief is entertained is great and wide. But a greater and wider evil arises when the credulous character is maintained and supported, when a habit of believing for unworthy reasons is fostered and made permanent. If I steal money from any person, there may be no harm done from the mere transfer of possession; he may not feel the loss, or it may prevent him from using the money badly. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself dishonest. What hurts society is not that it should lose its property, but that it should become a den of thieves, for then it must cease to be society. This is why we ought not to do evil, that good may come; for at any rate this great evil has come, that we have done evil and are made wicked thereby. In like manner, if I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery.

the probability of being able to "beat the system" increases when the system is inconsistent or corrupt.

In this administration, a place can be found for every bad man.

it’s human nature to assume that when we see a mistake, it’s due to defects in someone else’s department, knowledge, or character,

People are more inclined to believe in bad intentions than in good ones.

There has to be something wrong with a system that means you can take guilt on and off like an overcoat.

Getting to the top has an unfortunate tendency to persuade people that the system is OK after all.

Fault always lies in the same place: with him weak enough to lay blame.

When all else fails, there's always delusion.

When all else fails there's always delusion.