This piece is based on several well-known proverbs and/or quotations. The first of these is the old Russian adage: Ло́жка дегтю по́ртит бо́чку мёда, which roughly translates to: "A spoonful of tar will spoil a barrel of honey, but a spoonful of honey does nothing for a barrel of tar."

That particular saying has often been compared to its English equivalents of a single bad apple spoiling an entire barrel, or the proverbial 'fly in the ointment'.

A few other quotes I've used for inspiration include a quote attributed to Mark Twain: "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting its shoes on."; as well as the adage: "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.", which was attributed to Joseph Goebbels.

I also used two quotes from "Might is Right" by Ragnar Redbeard: "The most dangerous of all enthroned lies is the holy, the sanctified, the privileged lie -- the lie that "everybody" believes to be a model truth. It is the fruitful mother of all other popular errors and delusions. It is hydra-headed. It has a thousand roots. It is a social cancer. The lie that is known to be a lie is half eradicated, but the lie that even intelligent persons regard as a sacred fact -- the lie that has been inculcated around a mother's knee -- is more dangerous to contend against than a creeping pestilence. Popular lies have ever been the most potent enemies of personal liberty. There is only one way to deal with them. Cut them out, to the very core, just as cancers are. Exterminate them root and branch, or they will surely eat us all up. We must annihilate them, or they will us."

and also: "All laws, commandments, or doctrines as to not doing to another what you do not wish done to you, have no inherent authority whatever, but receive it only from the club, the gallows, and the sword. A man truly free is under no obligation to obey any injunction, human or divine. Obedience is the sign of the degenerate. Disobedience is the stamp of the hero."