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 corrupt, when found out, become especially good moralists.

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.

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.

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.

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