Influence of Money Quotes

Gold will buy the highest honours; and gold will purchase love.

We need to have real science, and real science doesn't happen under the hand of lobbyists with a conflict of interest. So get the revolving door done and over with and get the big money out of politics.

It is campaign money that calls the tune, a fact recognized by every politician within a few minutes after getting into politics.

It's gotta be hard when you are a newcomer to this kind of thing, this big political scene and you have somebody like Michael Bloomberg come in with hundreds of millions of dollars, dumping it in.

Money sometimes makes fools of important persons, but it may also make important persons of fools.

My experience politically has always been that one-word definition of politics: money. Keep your eye on the buck. And that tells you where the American people are going to be.

They who assert the purest right, and consequently are most dangerous to a corrupt State, commonly have not spent much time accumulating property. The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him; and it was certainly no great virtue to obtain it.

The report produced by my commission, the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy and Security, in 2012 showed the corrosive impact of money in US politics, for example, which undermines the legitimacy of the democratic system in citizens' eyes. Such perceptions partly explain the rise of a phenomenon like the success of Donald Trump.

the convictions of Hollywood and television are made of boiled money.

Speech doesn't corrupt. Money corrupts, and money isn't speech.

Citizens United said that transparency would be the disinfectant, but (c)(4)'s are warm, wet, moist incubators. There is no disinfectant.

The role of money in politics is terrible, particularly when you're running for president. You get a handful of billionaires who can basically buy the White House.

The president is the country's scapegoat more than the country's leader; the president has as much power as we think the president has. Whoever has the most money is the puppet master.

Here [in the USA], you have the best laws for freedom of expression. The problem is that expression can be bought by people who don't want you have it. Apparently, true patriotism destroys freedom of expression.

It's easy to become a satellite today without even being aware of it. This country can seduce God. Yes, it has that seductive power; the power of the dollar.

Most presidents have been controlled by forces that control money and special interests. When Donald Trump refused their money, he refused their control. This made him dangerous.

O money, money, how blindly thou hast been worshipped, and how stupidly abused! Thou are health and liberty and strength, and he that has thee may rattle his pockets at the foul fiend!

There's sort of a chilling effect on non-profits and the media and a lot of other places because the establishment is so powerful. That's where the money is.

I think the presidency is a bad way to measure the effective campaign finance, because in the presidency, there is so much publicity, there's so much money floating around.

The most encouraging sign is that 71 percent of the public believe the system is profoundly corrupted by the power of money. Ninety-six percent of the people believe it's "important" that we reduce the influence of money. Yet 91 percent think it's "not likely" that its influence will be lessened. Think about that: People know what's right to do yet don't think it can or will be done.

There's no one silver bullet, but money really is the root of all evil. The single biggest problem is how much more money is flooding into politics these days. It not only tends to enable a more extreme candidate to get elected, but because so much money is required to bankroll a campaign, everyone spends all their free time fundraising instead of reaching across the aisle.

Obviously, our political system is profoundly corrupted by, among other things, the influence of money. But, at a deeper level, the current structure is flawed because it looks to citizens for only two things - votes and money. I don't think we will see any healing until citizens are viewed in a whole new way.

For the United States, our political system is clearly distorted. We have gerrymandering so that there is a situation where a million more voters who vote for Democrats, yet the House is controlled by the Republicans. So clearly, the way our Congress operates is important. The other big issue is the influence of money in politics. It's not only campaign contributions. People like Trump - either you become very dependent on your benefactors or you are very rich.