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Pierre Stephen Robert Payne Quotes

1911–1983 England

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne (4 December 1911 – 3 March 1983) was a novelist, historian, poet, and biographer. Born in Cornwall, the son of an English naval architect, and with a French mother.

England
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Random Pierre Stephen Robert Payne quote

28 quotes

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

The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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

The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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

The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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.

The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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

The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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 Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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.

The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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

The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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 Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

A totalitarian dictatorship cannot explain; it can only suppress.

The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

Fragmentation occurs when a civilization is in decline.

The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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.

The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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.

The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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.

The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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

The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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.

The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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

The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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

The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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

The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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.

The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Pierre Stephen Robert Payne (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.