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Pierre Stephen Robert Payne Quotes

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne was an English-born author, known principally for works of biography and history, although he also wrote novels, poetry, magazine articles and many other works. After working in Singapore and China, he moved to the United States in 1946 and became a professor of English literature. From 1954 onwards he lived as a writer in New York.

A prolific author, Payne is best known for his biographies of prominent historical figures, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Hitler, Stalin, Karl Marx, Lenin, Mao Zedong and Mahatma Gandhi, several of which were selected for Book of the Month Club. These works are praised for their readability and literary power, although not always for their historical rigour. Wikipedia  

✵ 4. December 1911 – 3. March 1983
Pierre Stephen Robert Payne: 28 quotes0 likes

Famous Pierre Stephen Robert Payne Quotes

“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.”

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

The Five faces of Corruption, p. 45
The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

Lord Acton, Nietzsche, and Dostoyevsky, p. 187
The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

“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.”

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

The Five faces of Corruption, p. 46
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.”

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

The Romantic Agony, p. 157,
The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

The Corrupt Individual, p. 63
The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

“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.”

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

The Corrupt Presidency, p. 275
The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne Quotes about men

“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.”

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

The Corruptions Of the Physical Body, p. 5
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.”

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

A Vision of the Uncorrupted Society, p. 279 (See also: Niccolò Machiavelli..)
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.”

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

The Corruptions of Our Time, p. 249
The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne Quotes

“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.”

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

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

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

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

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

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

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

Introduction, p. viii
The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

“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.”

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

A Vision of the Uncorrupted Society, p. 292 ( See also: Social contract..)
The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

“Fragmentation occurs when a civilization is in decline.”

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

The Corruptions of Our Time, p. 238
The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

“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.”

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

Ibn Khaldun and Machiavelli, p. 139
The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

“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.”

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

The Drunken Helmsman, p. 97
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.”

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

The Corruptions of Our Time, p. 248
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.”

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

A Vision of the Uncorrupted Society, p. 284 (See also: Karl Marx..)
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.”

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

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

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

The Romantic Agony, p. 158
The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

The Corrupt Presidency, p. 273 (See also: Richard M. Nixon..)
The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

The Roman Triumph, p. 121
The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

The Nature of Human Corruption, p. 88
The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

Soviet Labor Camps, p. 211
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.”

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

The Five faces of Corruption, p. 45
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.”

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

Ibn Khaldun and Machiavelli, p. 147
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.”

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne

The Corruptions of Society, p. 9 (See also: The American Dream..)
The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

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