Robert Payne Quotes

The corrupt man is nearly always rootless, deeply aware of his rootlessness.

The game of power is played remorselessly by men who have not the slightest knowledge of, or interest in, the way ordinary people live, and the ordinary people are too terrified to protest.

A culture is not only the language and the arts of a people. It is all their history, all their hopes for the future.

Nietzsche's accomplishment is that he permits us to see corruption from the inside.

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.

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.

For domination has nothing whatsoever to do with good government, and power as an end in itself destroys good government.

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.

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.

All is forgiven to kings and popes. History grants them immunity, even a full pardon, even when they admit their crimes and glory in them.

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

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.

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

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.