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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

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Robert Payne
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Nietzsche's accomplishment is that he permits us to see corruption from the inside.
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The corrupt, when found out, become especially good moralists.
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For domination has nothing whatsoever to do with good government, and power as an end in itself destroys good government.
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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.
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It is almost a general rule that nations do not decline gradually. Instead they fall abruptly from their greatest heights.
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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.
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Long before the empire had reached its greatest extent, the Romans were bored by it.
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