13 quotes about Corruption

Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father in the politics of when to go to bed; he who fears corruption fears life.

— Alinsky, Saul

Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.

— Burke, Edmund

Wherever you see a man who gives someone else's corruption, someone else's prejudice as a reason for not taking action himself, you see a cog in The Machine that governs us.

— Chapman, John Jay

I have often noticed that a bribe has that effect -- it changes a relation. The man who offers a bribe gives away a little of his own importance; the bribe once accepted, he becomes the inferior, like a man who has paid for a woman.

— Greene, Graham

I am against government by crony.

— Ickes, Harold L.

Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country.

— Kraus, Karl

Corrupt, stupid grasping functionaries will make at least as big a muddle of socialism as stupid, selfish and acquisitive employers can make of capitalism.

— Lippmann, Walter

The sun shineth upon the dunghill, and is not corrupted.

— Lyly, John

The accomplice to the crime of corruption is frequently our own indifference.

— Myerson, Bess

When rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what price they will.

— Shakespeare, William

The jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honor feels.

— Tennyson, Lord Alfred

There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.

— Thoreau, Henry David

When I want to buy up any politician I always find the anti-monopolists the most purchasable -- they don't come so high.

— Vanderbilt, William