We can never get rid of mouse-ideas completely, they keep turning up again and again, and nibble, nibble-no matter how often we drive them off. The best way to keep them down is to have a few good strong cat-ideas which will embrace them and ensure their not reappearing till they do so in another shape.
— Samuel Butler, The Notebooks of Samuel Butler
The mouse-ideas of envy and resentment are running wild throughout many institutions these days, shredding valuable sources of wisdom to make their nests and befouling everything else with their waste. Where are the cat-ideas who would cull their numbers? Probably lazing in a sunbeam somewhere. There’s no point even in naming them; they never come when called. I used to have a terrier who would lie still for hours at a stretch, ears perked, completely focused, whenever he heard a mouse scratching around in a cupboard or closet. He would not allow himself to be distracted by anything until he had finally pounced upon it and gobbled it up. We need more terrier-ideas like him.