Corruption Quotes

I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.

A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within. The essential causes of Rome’s decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.

It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.

Both Republicans and Democrats are corrupt. The motto of the Democratic Party is, "Anything to get in." The motto of the Republican Party is "Anything to stay in.

You are a den of vipers and thieves ... by the eternal God, I will rout you out.

It's true that people will take advantage of you in Nigeria, but this happens everywhere in the world.

O, you anarchic scum, you cowardly murderers, you leeches upon honest labor, you midnight assassins!

When I reflect on the pompous titles bestowed on unworthy men, I feel an indignity that instructs me to despise the absurdity. The Honourable plunderer of his country, or the Right Honourable murderer of mankind, create such a contrast of ideas as exhibit a monster rather than a man. Virtue is inflamed at the violation, and sober reason calls it nonsense.

A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.

Congress: America's only true criminal class.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such;… I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain may be able to make a better Constitution….It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the Builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best.

He [Henry Clay] is certainly the basest, meanest scoundrel that ever disgraces the image of God—nothing too mean or low for him to condescend to.

Politicians are a lot like diapers. They should be changed frequently and for the same reason.

The kings are ravenous beasts, their ministers are dogs.

Absolute power, as we have always known, corrupts absolutely; it corrupts because it does not do the trick for the individual. Reality always creeps in--the reality of our helplessness and our mortality; the reality that, despite our reach for the stars, a creaturely fate awaits us.

Clever tyrants are never punished.

The Jew uses every means to undermine the racial foundations of a subjugated people. In his systematic efforts to ruin girls and women he strives to break down the last barriers of discrimination between himself and other peoples. The Jews were responsible for bringing Negroes into the Rhineland with the ultimate idea of bastardizing the whole white race.

There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel.

Politics is the art of achieving power and prestige without merit.

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.

You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the grace of the Eternal God, will rout you out.

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.