“Society is like a stew. If you don't stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top.”

Source: Drenai series, Legend, Pt 1: Against the Horde, Ch. 22

Variant: I sometimes think that people's hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what's at the bottom. All you can do is guess from what comes floating to the surface every once in a while.
Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002), Chapter 23, Kafka Temura

(full quote in context) Asked why he had not done more debates, Thompson replied "Standing up here 10 in a row, you know, like a bunch of seals waiting for somebody to throw you the next fish, is not necessarily the best way to impart your information to the American people. I'm not above acting like a seal every once in a while and waiting for the next fish, I just don't want to do it all the time."
[Ryan Sager, The New York Sun, http://www.nysun.com/article/62678?page_no=3, Mr. Sunshine State, September 14, 2007, 2007-09-21]

Defence of Criminals: A Criticism of Morality (1889)

http://www.efootage.com/stock-footage/48273/Jessica_Dubroffs_Dream_Ends_-_1996_/

Source: Why Stock Markets Crash - Critical Events in Complex Systems (2003), Chapter 4, Positive Feedbacks, p. 110.

Comment at City Arts & Lecture Series, Herbst Theater, San Francisco, CA; 29 October 2012 http://thirtythreadbaremercies.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/the-mad-farmer-lives-a-night-with-wendell-berry/#