The Wicked Become Worse – Leo Tolstoy

"In life, a decent person has so many ways to get ahead. A bad guy with the same smarts and drive has all those same ways open to them, but also some others that a decent person wouldn't go down. So, they have more chances to get ahead. As a result of this negative selection of character, the higher social classes become enriched with scoundrels. The better and more influential a social class is, the worse its average ethical level becomes. Only this circumstance can explain why the world has not been a paradise for at least five thousand years. One must know this if one wants to understand world history." Hermann Julius Oberth