Nick Denton Quotes

We all seem to be about aggression and greed. It's a massive pressure that affects us all.

To plunder, to lie, to show your ass, are the three essentials for climbing high.

The first sign of corruption in a society ... is that the ends justify the means.

Stress is the reason for crime and all other kinds of frustration. To relieve it will eliminate everything else.

The faults of the burglar are the qualities of the financier.

The world is so competitive, aggressive, consumive, selfish and during the time we spend here we must be all but that.

We all have those days when you feel like you're against the world, every little thing goes wrong and your blood pressure is up. And you feel like punching somebody!

I don't like to drive. I don't like the aggressiveness that goes along with driving.

We will push those crooks, those mercenaries back into the swamp.

We have seen that in this country in the last few years, particularly on Wall Street, with the rise of the old human frailty of greed. This occurs when people begin to serve only their own needs to the detriment of everyone else.

I have a lot of road rage. Mostly with the rickshaw and cab drivers trying to cut me; it's the traffic. Grrrr!

The FSG story starts to lose its fairy-tale aura when filthy lucre invades the sacred enclosure, as it did ubiquitously in the every-man-for-himself Reagan era.

Corporate bodies are more corrupt and profligate than individuals, because they have more power to do mischief, and are less amenable to disgrace or punishment. They feel neither shame, remorse, gratitude, nor goodwill.

A political organization is a transferable commodity. You could not find a better way of killing virtue than by packing it into one of these contraptions which some gang of thieves is sure to find useful.

This uneasy desire to augment our territory has depraved the moral sense and blighted the otherwise keen sagacity of our people.

But what will not ambition and revenge descend to?

Even the best-intentioned of great men need a few scoundrels around them; there are some things you cannot ask an honest man to do.

… the most corrupt of all corrupt men.

There are a lot of vipers in this industry, people who only have their own interests in mind.

My three years in politics was very instructive about the way in which the appetite for political power can destroy a human mind, destroy principles and values, and transform people into little monsters.

It would be a most despicable thing to suggest I would exploit the poor for my own personal gain.

Nearly everyone who chooses to work for Donald Trump is disreputable in one way or another; Ali Baba didn't find 40 wise men in the cave. But to label everyone in Trumpworld a grifter misses important subtleties. It conflates grifters and grafters, and it ignores the crucial distinction between the two.

Pardon me for breathing, which I never do any way so I don’t know why I bother to say it, oh God, I’m so depressed.

You have to not worry or doubt or punish yourself. All the worry, doubt and punishment will not add one second to your life, you know?

Small men, seeking great wealth or power, have too often and too long turned even the highest levels of public service into mere personal opportunity.