Robert Payne Quotes

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.

At the heart of the mystery of corruption lies the desire of one man to impose his will on others to the largest possible extent.

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

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

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

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

Uncorrupted man, with God's blessing, advances across the fields of the universe as though he were walking down a country lane.

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.

Fragmentation occurs when a civilization is in decline.

A totalitarian dictatorship cannot explain; it can only suppress.

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.

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

Conquest, tyranny, treachery, and the clash of cultures bring about corrupt societies, and so does old age. Sometimes the five faces of corruption are visible at the same time.

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

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