Quotes by Robert Payne - Page 1

The small Hitlers are around us every day.
Robert Payne / Novelist
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Fragmentation occurs when a civilization is in decline.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Civilization
Decline
Fragmentation
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The corrupt, when found out, become especially good moralists.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Found
Good Moral
Moralist
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A totalitarian dictatorship cannot explain; it can only suppress.
Robert Payne / Novelist
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The corrupt man is nearly always rootless, deeply aware of his rootlessness.
Robert Payne / Novelist
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Nietzsche's accomplishment is that he permits us to see corruption from the inside.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Accomplishment
Corruption
Permit
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Long before the empire had reached its greatest extent, the Romans were bored by it.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Bored
Empires
Long
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A culture is not only the language and the arts of a people. It is all their history, all their hopes for the future.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Art
Culture
People
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The books of men have their day and grow obsolete. God's word is like Himself, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Men
Book
Yesterday
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For domination has nothing whatsoever to do with good government, and power as an end in itself destroys good government.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Government
Domination
Ends
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It is almost a general rule that nations do not decline gradually. Instead they fall abruptly from their greatest heights.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Decline
Fall
Height
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Throughout the history of Christianity, there had been a core of belief that man was not doomed to be everlastingly corrupt.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Men
Belief
Christianity
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Uncorrupted man, with God's blessing, advances across the fields of the universe as though he were walking down a country lane.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Men
Blessing
Country
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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.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Men
Heart
Lying
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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.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Kings
Glory
Pope
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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.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Population
United States
Wealth
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Naked power has its limitations, since power is a generator of corruption and corruption in its turn tends to dilute the effectiveness of power.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Corruption
Effectiveness
Naked
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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.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Matter
Riches
Serious
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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.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Men
Long
Taken
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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.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Believe
Liars
Lying
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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.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Gains
Helping
Victory
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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.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Age
Doe
Faces
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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.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Garbage
Position Of Power
Would Be
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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.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Men
Games
People
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Corruption appears to be a universal phenomenon that lays its own imperious claims on the world, and therefore it is the duty of all nations to prepare themselves against its onslaught by taking proper precautions.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Corruption
Precaution
World
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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.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Military
Oligarchy
Wealth
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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.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Crumbling
Firsts
Kingdoms
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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.
Robert Payne / Novelist
Kings
Loyalty
Father
Real
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Robert Payne Quotes - Page 1

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