God forbade...must reading!

Corruption




   When great power is combined with an evil will, the result, greater harm. When this prince can do as he wishes, the higher likelihood he might not desire what he should. The common bias, the office yields prestige. You can't tell if a vase is cracked when it's empty, only when it's filled with authority do the defects become apparent. So, corrupt and depraved minds rarely show these defects, unable to bear the heavy weight of power, they give way and out pours of every crack; greed, pride, wrath, disrespect and every tyrannical practice manifest in their restless souls. They recklessly persecute the good and wise, while they exalt the wicked. They discourage friendships in an air of caution, they throw a wet blanket on unions, they spurn understandings among citizens. To make men afraid and cowardly, they encourage spies, informers and murderers, to keep men disunited and weak they sow discord.



  The likely outcome, endless harm and ruin for the unhappy people. The tyrants, themselves, live with a continual paranoia and, often, a cruel death.



  Contrarily, good princes are not afraid for themselves, but for those they rule. Tyrants fear those they rule, the more powerful they are and to the greater number of people they rule, the more fear they feel, the more enemies they have.



  History tells of a public figure who whenever he was in the market, at a show or banquet, preferred to sleep in a chest. Another made his bed a kind of prison. It was suspended in the room, he and his wife would climb a ladder to get in, her mother would, later, remove it and in the morning put it back.



  The life of a good prince should be far from this. Free, secure and as dear to his citizens as their own lives. So, ordered to take part in the active and contemplative life, in the measure suited to the welfare of his people.





The Book of the Courtier

Baldesar Castiglione