This Leonardo da Vinci quote came in a comment in the discussion around New Research on Bad Apples is generally wonderful — thanks so much to Kent, Rob, Lilly, Frank, Peter, Wally, and Randy. I especially wanted to thank the person who sent this quote, as it gets at one of the main reasons that the the pro-asshole rather than the no asshole rule flourishes: people pretend that they don’t see or become blind to the abuse that is happening right in front of them.   This quote appears at the top of the enlightening — and frightening — blog contributes on Bullying of Academics in Higher Education — unfortunately, as this blog shows so convincingly, academia can be a nasty place. I would add it isn’t always that way, and in fact, I’ve been a member of a group at Stanford that used the no asshole rule and I know of one very successful lab director who actively enforced the "no jerk rule" in the Stanford Engineering School — but as in any organization, things can turn ugly in academia.