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

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

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

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.

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

Fragmentation occurs when a civilization is in decline.