Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

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. Payne had more than 110 books published, novels, histories and biographies.

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

 * 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.
 * Introduction, p. viii


 * 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 Corruptions Of the Physical Body, p. 5


 * 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.
 * The Corruptions Of the Physical Body, p. 6


 * 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 Corruptions of Society, p. 9 (See also: The American Dream..)


 * 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 Five faces of Corruption, p. 31 (See also: Samuel P. Huntington..)


 * 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 Five faces of Corruption, p. 45


 * For domination has nothing whatsoever to do with good government, and power as an end in itself destroys good government.
 * The Five faces of Corruption, p. 45


 * 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.
 * The Five faces of Corruption, p. 46


 * The corrupt man is nearly always rootless, deeply aware of his rootlessness.
 * The Corrupt Individual, p. 63
 * The corrupt, when found out, become especially good moralists.
 * The Nature of Human Corruption, p. 88


 * 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 Drunken Helmsman, p. 97


 * Long before the empire had reached its greatest extent, the Romans were bored by it.
 * The Roman Triumph, p. 121


 * 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.
 * Ibn Khaldun and Machiavelli, p. 139


 * It is almost a general rule that nations do not decline gradually. Instead they fall abruptly from their greatest heights.
 * Ibn Khaldun and Machiavelli, p. 147


 * Uncorrupted man, with God's blessing, advances across the fields of the universe as though he were walking down a country lane.
 * The Romantic Agony, p. 157,


 * Throughout the history of Christianity, there had been a core of belief that man was not doomed to be everlastingly corrupt.
 * The Romantic Agony, p. 158


 * 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.
 * Lord Acton, Nietzsche, and Dostoyevsky, p. 180


 * Nietzsche's accomplishment is that he permits us to see corruption from the inside.
 * Lord Acton, Nietzsche, and Dostoyevsky, p. 187


 * A totalitarian dictatorship cannot explain; it can only suppress.
 * Soviet Labor Camps, p. 211


 * Fragmentation occurs when a civilization is in decline.
 * The Corruptions of Our Time, p. 238


 * 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 Corruptions of Our Time, p. 248


 * 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 Corruptions of Our Time, p. 249


 * His worst crime was that he gave no hope to the young.
 * The Corrupt Presidency, p. 273 (See also: Richard M. Nixon..)


 * 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.
 * The Corrupt Presidency, p. 275


 * 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 Vision of the Uncorrupted Society, p. 279 (See also: Niccolò Machiavelli..)
 * 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.
 * A Vision of the Uncorrupted Society, p. 284 (See also: Karl Marx..)


 * 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 Vision of the Uncorrupted Society, p. 288 (See also: Hunter S. Thompson..)


 * 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.
 * A Vision of the Uncorrupted Society, p. 292 ( See also: Social contract..)