Corrupt Society Quotes

• The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Education, Children, Growing Up

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1977). “The Portable Nietzsche”, p.63, Penguin

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• Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

  Marianne Williamson

  Life, Confidence, Fear

  A Return to Love ch. 7 (1992). Frequently misattributed to Nelson Mandela.

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• As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

  Nelson Mandela

  Inspirational, Strength, Confidence

  Nelson Mandela (2011). “Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations”, p.11, Pan Macmillan

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• When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Life, Money, Men

  "Economic Sophisms". Book by Frédéric Bastiat, Second series, 1848.

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• 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

  Country, Moral Corruption, Literature

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• The fight for justice against corruption is never easy. It never has been and never will be. It exacts a toll on our self, our families, our friends, and especially our children. In the end, I believe, as in my case, the price we pay is well worth holding on to our dignity.

  Frank Serpico

  Children, Believe, Fighting

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• ...if the citizens neglect their Duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made, not for the public good so much as for selfish or local purposes; corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the Laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizen will be violated or disregarded.

  Noah Webster

  Selfish, Men, Rights

  Noah Webster (1835). “Instructive and Entertaining Lessons for Youth: With Rules for Reading with Propriety, Illustrated by Examples: Designed for Use in Schools and Families”, p.230

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• Nothing incites to money-crimes like great poverty or great wealth.

  Mark Twain

  Money, Entrepreneur, Poverty

  Mark Twain (2012). “The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain: A Book of Quotations”, p.12, Courier Corporation

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• Corruption is the enemy of development, and of good governance. It must be got rid of. Both the government and the people at large must come together to achieve this national objective.

  Pratibha Patil

  Inspirational, Government, People

  Pratibha Patils farewell speech to the nation, www.abplive.in. July 24, 2012.

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• Now more than ever the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption.

  James A. Garfield

  Inspirational, Ignorance, Character

  Garfield, James A. (1882). “The works of James Abram Garfield. Volume 2”, p.486, Best Books on

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• The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means.

  Georges Bernanos

  Mean, Tyrants, Deception

  Georges Bernanos (1955). “Last essays”

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• If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted . . . . If a republican government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the Divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws.

  Noah Webster

  Happiness, Failure, Men

  Noah Webster (1835). “Instructive and Entertaining Lessons for Youth: With Rules for Reading with Propriety, Illustrated by Examples: Designed for Use in Schools and Families”, p.230

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• People say that the monetary system produces incentive.  This may be true in limited areas, but it also produces greed, embezzlement, corruption, pollution, jealousy, anger, crime, war, poverty, tremendous scarcity, and unnecessary human suffering.  You have to look at the entire picture.

  Jacque Fresco

  Jealousy, War, Anger

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• It's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Spiritual, Yoga, Health

  "The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity". Book by Mark Vonnegut, 1975.

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• A corrupt society is terrible for humanity and great for business.

  Farhan Akhtar

  Humanity, Corruption, Terrible

  Twitter post from Oct 19, 2012

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• You can rule ignorance; you can manipulate the illiterate; you can do whatever you want when a people are uneducated, so that goes in line with corrupt business and corrupt politics.

  will.i.am

  Ignorance, Rapper, People

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• While transparency reduces corruption, good governance goes beyond transparency in achieving openness. Openness means involving the stakeholders in decision-making process. Transparency is the right to information while openness is the right to participation.

  Narendra Modi

  Mean, Decision, India

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• The mistake you make, don't you see,is in thinking one can live in a corrupt society without being corrupt oneself. After all, what do you achieve by refusing to make money? You're trying to behave as though one could stand right outside our economic system. But one can't. One's got to change the system, or one changes nothing. One can't put things right in a hole-and-corner way, if you take my meaning.

  George Orwell

  Mistake, Thinking, Trying

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• Men with the muckrake are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Men, Corruption, Well Being

  Speech, Washington, D.C., 14 Apr. 1906 See Bunyan 6

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• If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.

  Samuel Adams

  Country, Patriotic, Men

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• The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Government, Discovery, America

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• If parasitism, favoritism, corruption, and greed for the unearned did not exist, a mixed economy would bring them into existence.

  Ayn Rand

  Greed, Favoritism, Corruption

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.240, Penguin

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• Since Western society is deteriorating, it has become overrun with immorality, and God is going to judge it, and destroy it. And the only way the black people caught up in this society can be saved is not to integrate into this corrupt society, but to separate from it, to a land of our own, where we can reform ourselves, lift up our moral standards and try to be godly.

  Malcolm X

  Godly, Land, People

  Malcolm X (2015). “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”, p.282, Ballantine Books

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• Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.

  Patrick Henry

  Freedom, 4th Of July, Blessing

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• Now, because men of our contemporary age are caught up in the ascetic view of a life-denying religious system, but in spite of this cannot deny the primal laws of nature, a distorted morality had to be developed, which spreads hypocritical appearances over hidden actions. This has brought to a head all those outward forms of modern life, whose vacuousness and corruption are now beginning to disgust us.

  Guido von List

  Life, Religious, Nature

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