State Decay Quotes

Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.

In a well governed state, there are few punishments, not because there are many pardons, but because criminals are rare; it is when a state is in decay that the multitude of crimes is a gaurantee of impunity.

Corruptisima republica plurimae leges.

The Central Intelligence Agency is in a rotten state. Today, Central Intelligence Agency has hardly any worthwhile operations behind the iron curtain. In their briefings they present a rosy picture to outsiders but the awful truth remains under the TOP SECRET label of the agency.

The plague of government is senile delinquency.

Let the king prohibit gambling and betting in his kingdom, for these are vices that destroy the kingdoms of princes.

A state too expensive in itself, or by virtue of its dependencies, ultimately falls into decay; its free government is transformed into a tyranny; it disregards the principles which it should preserve, and finally degenerates into despotism. The distinguishing characteristic of small republics is stability: the character of large republics is mutability.

The very existence of the Nation was threatened. Threatened on all sides, from the interior and exterior. From the interior, by the sterile conflicts of politicians who sacrificed the country and their compatriots to their own interests. Nothing counted for them but power...and what the exercise of power could bring them. Fill their own pockets, exploit the Congo and the Congolese, this was their trademark. Given such examples, both national and provincial administrations were mired in inertia, inefficiency, and worse yet, corruption. At all levels, many of those in our country who held a morsel of public power allowed themselves to be corrupted, served individuals and companies who paid bribes and neglected the others... ...certain politicians, to maintain themselves in power or to regain it, did not hesitate to seek help from foreign powers... ...the social, economic and financial situation of the country is catastrophic

California is like a beautiful wild kid on heroin, high as a kite and thinking she's on top of the world, not knowing she's dying, not believing it even if you show her the marks.

The root of a nation's misfortunes has to be sought in the moral failings of the government.

The true key to the declension of the Roman empire which is not to be found in all Gibbon 's immense work may be stated in two words: the imperial character overlaying, and finally destroying, the national character. Rome under Trajan was an empire without a nation.

I am inheriting a country which has been badly ravaged by years of misrule and ineptitude. There has been a wide disconnect between the people and the government.

The division of the Roman world between the sons of Theodosius marks the final establishment of the empire of the East, which, from the reign of Arcadius to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, subsisted one thousand and fifty-eight years in a state of premature and perpetual decay.

Corruption is the virus that has eroded the healthy body of the party and the state. If we lower our guard and let it run wild, our party will be ruined, the people's power will be lost, and the great cause of social modernization will be forced off track.

There is a rich and haughty King who is blessed with such neighbours as are not likely to disturb him and has nothing to fear from his miserable subjects; but the whole body of that state is full of boils and wounds and putrid sores. There is no real strength in it. The people are so unwilling to serve him that he is said to have put to death above fourscore thousand of his own soldiers within the space of fifteen years for flying from their colours, and if he were vigorously attacked, little help could be expected from a discontented nobility or a starving and despairing people.

Wars are to the body politic, what drams are to the individual. There are times when they may prevent a sudden death, but if frequently resorted to, or long persisted in, they heighten the energies only to hasten the dissolution.

A state too expensive in itself, or by virtue of its dependencies, ultimately falls into decay.