Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved. Les Misérables

In fact, one of the main lesson to be learned from the collapses of the Maya, Anasazi, Easter Islanders, and those other past societies (as well as from the recent collapse of the Soviet Union) is that a society's steep decline may begin only a decade or two after the society reaches its peak numbers, wealth, and power. [...] The reason is simple: maximum population, wealth, resource consumption, and waste production mean maximum environmental impact, approaching the limit where impact outstrips resources. On reflection, it's no surprise that declines of societies tend to follow swiftly on their peaks. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Do not imagine, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure! Animal Farm

If there were a distinguished person whose life, by birth and conditions, belonged especially to the same earthly dissimilarity, a distinguished person who would not assent to this divisive conspiracy against the universally human, that is, against the neighbor, if he did not have the heart to do this, if, clearly perceiving the consequences, he still trusted in God for the strength to bear these consequences while he lacked the strength to harden his heart ... the distinguished corruption would accuse him of being a traitor and self-lover—because he wanted to love the neighbor. Works of Love