And at that very moment, we heard a loud whack!
From outside in the fields came a sickening smack
of an axe on a tree. Then we heard the tree fall.
The very last Truffula Tree of them all!

No more trees. No more Thneeds. No more work to be done.
So, in no time, my uncles and aunts, every one,
all waved me good-bye. They jumped into my cars
and drove away under the smoke-smuggered stars.

Now all that was left ´neath the bad-smelling sky
was my big empty factory…  the Lorax… and I.

-Dr. Seuss, The Lorax
“‘I am taking trouble with you, Winston,’ [O’Brien] said, ‘because you are worth the trouble. You know perfectly well what is the matter with you. You have known it for years, though you have fought against the knowledge. You are mentally deranged. You suffer from a defective memory. You are unable to remember real events, and you persuade yourself that you remember other events which never happened. Fortunately it is curable. You have never cured yourself of it, because you did not choose to. There was a small effort of the will that you were not ready to make. Even now, I am well aware, you are clinging to your disease under the impression that it is a virtue. Now we will take an example. At this moment, which power is Oceania at war with?’”

-From 1984, by George Orwell

Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.
- Charles Mackay

“Why this bewilderment? This sudden confusion? Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly, everyone going home lost in thoughts? Because night has fallen, and the barbarians have not come. And some of our men, just in from the border, say there are no barbarians any longer! Now, what is going to happen to us without the barbarians? They were, those people, after all, a kind of solution.”

^–C. P. Cavafy

“I will not play at tug o’ war/ I’d rather play at hug o’ war/ Where everyone hugs/ Instead of tugs/ Where everyone giggles/ And rolls on the rug. // Where everyone kisses,/ And everyone grins,/ And everyone cuddles,/ And everyone wins.”

-Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends