Ashoka was a great ruler 250 years BC in what is now India. He is well known for promoting a non-violent movement. Of course, this was after killing all of his enemies. The idea is that a brutal war made him realize violence was not the way. But in any case, he won by brute force by exploiting an unfair system first, and once established, he changed the rules. 

Fernando Pessoa wrote the anarchist banker in 1922. The satiric idea is that the only way to be free from a capitalistic system and be a true anarchist is to stop caring about money, and the only way not to care about money is to have so much money, that you can act as you want. A perverse but suggestive idea. 

Picasso painted some really weird paintings that revolutionized art. But before that, he had to demonstrate extraordinary artistic talent in his early years following the standard cannon. Only then he was able to disrupt the scene. 

We just got rejected from both Nature and Science recently. I am a bit disappointed because it was a really solid and cool paper. But especially I am disappointed because publishing there would give me some slack to change things. A good excuse to redeem my past behavior and embrace non-violent publishing systems, or enough prestige to stop caring about where to publish and embrace anarchy, or demonstrate something and ensure someone still pays attention to what I do when I try new ways of doing science. 

This is just rambling in a semi-poetic way, don’t over-interpret it. It’s just writing for fun.