"But the state lies in all the tongues of good and evil; and whatever it talks about, it lies - and whatever it has, it has stolen. Everything about it is false; it bites with stolen teeth, and it snarls. Even its very entrails are false." - Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (thanks to Robert Katz)

UPDATE thanks also to Robert Katz for this: ""Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on [office] a rottenness begins in his conduct." - Thomas Jefferson to Tench Coxe, 1799