My view of civilization is that there have always been small pockets of good, decent, kind people surrounded by corrupt and evil power structures. It's always a battle to stay on the side of good.

Power's a strange thing, lad. It's a drug people like me crave it.

Progress in civilization has been accompanied by progress in cookery.

Power doesn't corrupt people, people corrupt power.

No matter how hard Evil tries, it can never quite match up to the power of Good, because Evil is ultimately self-destructive. Evil may set out to corrupt others, but in the process corrupts itself.

It must be that evil communications corrupt good dispositions.