Sparks: A bruising 24 hours - what next for Fifa and under-pressure Infantino?
Papal infallibility was claimed as the Church lost its lands, and here the administrative center asserts absolute dominion just as the moral foundation begins to crumble; for power, when it is absolute, inevitably seeks to outlive its own utility.
If a man builds a house upon the promise of another man’s gold, and that gold is found to be mere dross, he cannot complain when the roof falls in upon his own head.
Structural necessity dictates that the hegemon who offers a share of the spoils to his allies will find himself deserted the moment the treasury is empty and the risk of the venture outweighs the profit.
Fortune never raises a man to such heights of public vanity without preparing a fall that is equal in magnitude to his pride.
Monopolists who masquerade as guardians of the public sport inevitably find that when their secret cartels fail, the very merchants they sought to bind are the first to demand their liquidation.
All the commotion of international governance arises from a single man's inability to sit quietly in a room without trying to sell the future for a stake in an imaginary kingdom.
By grasping the globe too tightly, the fingers lose their strength, and the world slips through the palm like water.
Watching these grandees scramble for their dignities, I am reminded that even on the highest throne in the world, we are still only sitting on our own tails.
Professional vanity is a stubborn contagion, and when the lead physician insists the patient is thriving despite a pulse that has entirely ceased, it is time to change the doctor rather than the diagnosis.
Having successfully sold the rights to a vacuum, the committee was understandably perturbed to find that the vacuum was now demanding a seat on the board and a significant increase in its travel allowance.
It is a most efficient arrangement to sell the same acre of clouds to ten different bidders, provided one has the foresight to vanish before the sun comes out to expose the vacancy.
Those who profess to favor liberty and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, and they will find no justice in a counting-house built on the backs of the unrepresented.
The equation is flawed because you have treated a variable interest as a mathematical constant, and no amount of political theater can force a divergent series to converge upon a stable result.
Men who have been trained to value only the hollow prestige of rank are naturally bewildered when the mere appearance of authority fails to command the actual respect of the rational world.
When the bridge you built is rotten and the dogs are catching up, you don't stop to argue with the wood; you find a new way across or you get caught.
"The investment plan remains robust despite current headwinds," he declares, using a syntax that carefully ensures the robustness belongs to the plan and the failure belongs to the wind.
Underneath the silk suits and the fine speeches, the pack is beginning to circle the wounded leader, sensing that the meat is finally on the bone and the fire is burning low.
Every local merchant I encounter in these high-altitude offices seems to be packing their trunks with a haste that suggests the climate of favor is changing far more rapidly than the official reports admit.
In the great markets of the west, I observe that the judges are often more concerned with the glitter of the coin than the spirit of the law, which leads to a city where no man feels his contract is secure.
The grand scheme is presented as a benefit to the global commons, yet the small shopkeeper in the village sees only that his taxes rise while the promised gold stays locked in a vault he cannot name.