Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.
Corrupt, stupid grasping functionaries will make at least as big a muddle of socialism as stupid, selfish and acquisitive employers can make of capitalism.
Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country.
I am against government by crony.
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.
I want either less corruption, or more chance to participate in it.
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.
The accomplice to the crime of corruption is frequently our own indifference.
The jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honor feels.
The sun shineth upon the dunghill, and is not corrupted.
There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.
When I want to buy up any politician I always find the anti-monopolists the most purchasable — they don't come so high.
When rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what price they will.
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.