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corruption quotes

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“to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day...” Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt; an Autobiography
“To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” Barack Obama, Inaugural Address
“Again, the many are more incorruptible than the few; they are like the greater quantity of water which is less easily corrupted than a little.” Aristotle, Politics
“there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.” Mark Twain, Following the Equator
“Corruption wins not more than honesty.” William Shakespeare, Henry VIII
“The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature
“I hate ingratitude more in a man than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness, or any taint of vice whose strong corruption inhabits our frail blood.” William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
“if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” George Orwell, Politics and the English Language
“Virtue is chok'd with foul ambition, and charity chas'd hence by rancour's hand; foul subornation is predominant, and equity exil'd your highness' land.” William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2
“Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power or debased by the habit of obedience, but by the exercise of a power which they believe to be illegal and by obedience to a rule which they consider to be usurped and oppressive.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
“The government of my country snubs honest simplicity but fondles artistic villainy, and I think I might have developed into a very capable pickpocket if I had remained in the public service a year or two.” Mark Twain, Roughing It
“Do you know how a man makes his way here? By brilliant genius or by skilful corruption. You must either cut your way through these masses of men like a cannon ball, or steal among them like a plague.” Honoré de Balzac, Father Goriot
“To an atheist all writings tend to atheism: he corrupts the most innocent matter with his own venom.” Michel de Montaigne, The Essays of Michel de Montaigne
“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.” Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
“I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.” Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
“Fair speech may hide a foul heart.” J. R. R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
“But then the pastors and men of God can only be human,—cannot be altogether men of God; and so they have oppressed us, and burned us, and tortured us, and hence come to love palaces, and fine linen, and purple, and, alas, sometimes, mere luxury...” Anthony Trollope, Phineas Redux

Related topics

power speech government language success quantity politics meaning America honesty evil beauty virtue deceit religion thought obedience oppression congress genius

Related authors

William Shakespeare (3)
Oscar Wilde (1)
Mark Twain (2)
George Orwell (1)
Alexis de Tocqueville (1)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1)
Frederick Douglass (1)
Honoré de Balzac (1)
Barack Obama (1)
Aristotle (1)
J. R. R. Tolkien (1)
Theodore Roosevelt (1)
Michel de Montaigne (1)
Anthony Trollope (1)

Related sources

Nature (1)
Following the Equator (1)
Politics (1)
Roughing It (1)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1)
Democracy in America (1)
Twelfth Night (1)
Henry VIII (1)
The Essays of Michel de Montaigne (1)
The Two Towers (1)
Inaugural Address (1)
Politics and the English Language (1)
Father Goriot (1)
Phineas Redux (1)
Theodore Roosevelt; an Autobiography (1)
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1)
Henry VI, Part 2 (1)