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.

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 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.

A totalitarian dictatorship cannot explain; it can only suppress.

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

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.

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.