Robert Payne

Throughout the history of Christianity, there had been a core of belief that man was not doomed to be everlastingly corrupt.

The corrupt, when found out, become especially good moralists.

It is almost a general rule that nations do not decline gradually. Instead they fall abruptly from their greatest heights.

It is no more rational to have lawyers in positions of power than it would be to have garbage collectors in positions of power. And in human terms garbage collectors would be preferable.

A nation's wealth is too serious a matter to be left to the wealthy. The riches of a nation belong to all, to be shared among all for the general welfare.

It is precisely when we help one another that we gain our victories over corruption, but the victory is assured only when we help one another with all our strength.

Historically the first philosopher to enquire deeply into the nature of corruption in society was Ibn Khaldun (1322-1406), whose wandering life was largely spent in the northern littoral of Africa at a time when kingdoms and sultanates were crumbling.

His worst crime was that he gave no hope to the young.

The United States is dangerously close to being a plutocracy. A third of the private wealth is owned by less than 5 percent of the population.

In the Middle Ages the king offered protection to his subjects in return for their loyalty, and the subjects were doubly protected, for the church also sheltered them. The need for shelter - for a father image that cares and will hopefully provide and give some meaning to human lives - remains as real as it was in the Middle Ages, but modern technocracy has no place for either the father or the church and provides no substitute.

Naked power has its limitations, since power is a generator of corruption and corruption in its turn tends to dilute the effectiveness of power.

Where there had been hope, there was now hopelessness. Where there had been courage, there was now cynicism. Where there had been life, there was a living death. During Nixon's reign, much of life was transformed into a nightmare.

Long before the empire had reached its greatest extent, the Romans were bored by it.

Sometimes societies die and putrefy long before they are pronounced dead, and sometimes men die of corruption long before they have taken to their deathbeds.

A totalitarian dictatorship cannot explain; it can only suppress.