quotations about corruption
Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad.
HENRY KISSINGER
attributed, Seeds of Revolution: A Collection of Axioms, Passages and Proverbs
Why not leave why not
Go away
Too much hatred
Corruption and greed
Give your life
And invariably they leave you with
Nothing
TRACY CHAPMAN
"She's Got Her Ticket"
A corrupt judge does not carefully search for the truth.
HORACE
attributed, Forty Thousand Quotations
The natural state of man is neither the savage state nor that of corruption. It is a simple state, better and more nearly approaching to the Divinity. The savage and the corrupt man are equally remote from it; but both serve as irrefragable monuments, to attest that fall of man, which contains in itself alone the key of all his history. Hence that retrograde motion of the moral world, in opposition to the constantly ascending force of the human mind; hence the present state, in which the wisdom of men is only an intuition, a recollection of the past, and in which virtue itself is but a return towards God.
SERGEY UVAROV
Essay on the Mysteries of Eleusis
If you say this corruption is so potent in all men, as to oppose and prevail against the Gospel, not assisted by force or miracles; that is not true. If in most men; so it is still, even where force is used. For I desire you to name me a country, where the greatest part are really and truly Christians, such as you confidently believe Christ, at the last day, will own to be so.
JOHN LOCKE
A Third Letter for Toleration
In some parts of the world corruption has been a way of life for centuries. This has benefited the few, of course, at the expense of the many.
BENJAMIN CREME
"The end of corruption", Share International, April 2005
Corruption is a hard cane that beats hard on a nation with deaf ears.
CHUKWUEMEKA E. ONYEJINDUAKA
6,000 Proverbs and Quotes of Chukwuemeka E. O.
Corruption is like a troll in fairy tales: it cannot stand strong daylight.
JAN BERGQVIST
remarks at Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, April 5, 2000
The sun shineth upon the dunghill, and is not corrupted.
JOHN LYLY
Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit
Corruption is like a mold on our political system; we can go a long way toward killing it off with nothing more than sunlight and air.
DANIEL DE FARO ADAMSON & JOE ANDREW
The Blue Way: How to Profit by Investing in a Better World
Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country.
KARL KRAUS
Morality and Criminal Justice
Power in the hands of the reformer is no less potentially corrupting than in the hands of the oppressor.
DERRICK BELL
Ethical Ambition
The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means.
GEORGES BERNANOS
"Why Freedom?", The Last Essays of Georges Bernanos
The powerful are often corrupt before they are powerful. In fact, I find that they too often become powerful by being corrupt.
FRANK BEDDOR
ArchEnemy
All things can corrupt perverse minds.
OVID
attributed, Day's Collacon
Corruption is a tree, whose branches are
Of an immeasurable length: they spread
Ev'rywhere; and the dew that drops from thence
Hath infected some chairs and stools of authority.
JOHN FLETCHER
The Honest Man's Fortune
I know who these people are
I know what they stand for
Corruption's built into this plan
Nothing's under the other hand
IGGY POP
"Instinct"
With all this corruption
It's pretty hard to win
ONE WAY SYSTEM
"Corrupted World"
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.
TACITUS
The Annals of Imperial Rome
Corruption is like a ball of snow, when once set a rolling it must increase. It gives momentum to the activity of the knave, but it chills the honest man, and makes him almost weary of his calling: and all that corruption attracts, it also retains; for it is easier not to fall, than only to fall once, and not to yield a single inch, than having yielded, to regain it.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think