How To Boil A Frog

Gore Vidal, Creation pp 398-9

The prime minister received each petitioner with a quiet courtesy that was entirely unlike his fierce political views.  He was shrewd enough to know that you can never enslave a reluctant people without first charming them.  Certainly, you must convince them that your way is their way and that the chains which you have forged for them are necessary ornaments.  In a sense, the Great Kings have always realized this.  From Cyrus to our current enlightened lord, Artaxerxes, the diverse peoples  of the empire are allowed to live pretty much as they have always lived, change for which he gives them safety and law.  Huan had managed to convince the admittedly barbarous and remote Ch'inese that although there had once been a golden age when men were free to live as they pleased, that age ended when -- and how he loved to use the phrase! -- "there were too many people and too few things."