Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Corrupt men are always liars. Lies are their instruments, their pleasure, their solace. In time they come to believe their lies, or rather to half-believe them.”

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

“Fragmentation occurs when a civilization is in decline.”

“A totalitarian dictatorship cannot explain; it can only suppress.”

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

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

“The second corruption of the state is oligarchy (oligos = few), in which the military elite is narrowed down to a few ruling families of immense wealth and prestige, who now openly flaunt their wealth and possessions.”

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

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