Extortion Quotes

God, how patient are Thy poor! These corporations and masters of manipulation in finance heaping up great fortunes by a system of legalized extortion, and then exacting from the contributors-to whom a little means so much-a double share to guard the treasure! ~ Robert M. La Follette, Sr.

From such beginnings of governments, what could be expected, but a continual system of war and extortion? ~ Thomas Paine

Rights are something made up by governments to make you feel like you're buying something with your taxes. ~ Stefan Molyneux

There are plenty of other ways to get money, including chance, speculation, marriage, inheritance, theft, extortion, fraud, monopoly, graft, lobbying, counterfeiting, and prospecting. Most of the greatest fortunes have probably involved several of these. ~ Paul Graham

We cannot afford all this illegal immigration and everything that comes with it, everything from the crime and to the drugs and the kidnappings and the extortion and the beheadings and the fact that people can't feel safe in their community. It's wrong! It's wrong! ~ Jan Brewer

That the Roman empire was, like all its predecessors, a form of extortion by force, an enriching of well-connected Romans (who "make a desolation and call it peace") at the expense of hapless conquered peoples, would also not have carried much weight with most readers. Hadn't Philip of Macedon's first conquest been the seizure of the Balkan gold mines? Hadn't Alexander's last planned campaign been for the sake of controlling the lucrative Arabian spice trade? How could anyone demur over such things? What would be the point of holding out against the nature of man and of the universe itself? Augustus set up in the midst of the Roman Forum a statue of himself that loomed eleven times the size of a normal man,10 and similarly awesome statues were erected in central shrines throughout the empire. Augustus was not a normal man; he was a god, deserving of worship. And, like all gods, he was terrifying. ~ Thomas Cahill

Marshal Petain's Vichy regime looked like that new start. A couple of years later, it wasn't so evident that he was going to be able to protect them from German extortions, and it didn't look so much as though they had won the war, either. And so by '43, a lot of people are shifting sides. ~ Robert O. Paxton

We must teach our people to reject gain from extortion, bribery, unrighteous grafts as something utterly abhorring. ~ Sunday Adelaja

Mug shot extortion sites turn this sort of thing into a business. Mug shots are public record, but they're not readily available. Owners of mug shot sites acquire the photos in bulk and publish them online, where everybody can find them, then charge individuals to remove their photos from the sites. ~ Bruce Schneier

...Incest is rape by extortion. Thus the child's very childhood becomes a weapon used to control her. ~ E. Sue Blume

It's just like Marissa to jump right in with the heavy artillery, like guilt and extortion.
I'm so proud to be related to the devil's mistress. ~ Michelle Leighton

To the eye it is fair enough, here; but seen in its integrity, under the sky, and by the daylight, it is a crumbling tower of waste, mismanagement, extortion, debt, mortgage, oppression, hunger, nakedness, and suffering. ~ Charles Dickens

If you press your ear to the turf that is stolen
You can hear the sound of limitations exploding
Please sir, may we have another portion?
We're children of the beast that dodged the abortion
Neck placed firm 'tween the floor and the Florsheim
We'll shut your shit down, don't call it extortion
Caution -- we're coming for your head
So call the Feds and get files to shred
Every textbook read said bring you the bread
But guess what we got you instead?

We got the guillotine, we got the guillotine ~ Boots Riley

Yes, I am aware of the enticements required to obtain them," Kang replied with distaste. "I believe the Russians could teach the West a thing or two about capitalistic extortion. ~ Clive Cussler

Karsa shrugged. 'The Malazan soldiers in Genabaris said the Seven Cities was going to rebel against their occupiers. This is why the Teblor do not make conquests. Better that the enemy keeps its land, so that we may raid again and again.'

'Not the imperial way,' the Daru responded, shaking his head. 'Possession and control, the two are like insatiable hungers for some people. Oh, no doubt the Malazans have thought up countless justifications for their wars of expansion. It's well known that Seven Cities was a rat's warren of feuds and civil wars, leaving most of the population suffering and miserable and starving under the heels of fat warlords and corrupt priest-kings. And that, with the Malazan conquest, the thugs ended up spiked to the city walls or on the run. And the wilder tribes no longer sweep down out of the hills to deliver mayhem on their more civilized kin. And the tyranny of the priesthoods was shattered, putting an end to human sacrifice and extortion. And of course the merchants have never been richer, or safer on these roads. So, all in all, this land is rife for rebellion. ~ Steven Erikson

FARC, the Colombian rebels who've been funding their revolution against the state with kidnapping, extortion, and drug dealing. ~ Janet Evanovich

Term limits aren't enough. We need jail. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

Today is February 14th - St. Valentine's day. Women call it Love day, while men name it as Extortion day. ~ Jay Leno

We won't tolerate abuses and crimes made every day in the name of freedom of speech. That is freedom of extortion and blackmail. ~ Rafael Correa

Using coercion to drive charity is like using kidnapping to create love. ~ Stefan Molyneux

And you know, it's not just illegal immigration. Terrorists can come across. They're devastating our ranchers down in southern Arizona - drop houses, kidnapping, automobile accidents, extortion, drugs, the spill-over with the drug cartels. We're facing all of it. ~ Jan Brewer

Well, there's a Book that says we're all sinners and I at least chose a sin that's made quite a few people happier than they were before they met me, a sin that's left me with very little time to consider other extremely popular moral misdemeanors, like usury, intolerance, bearing false tales, extortion, racial bigotry, and the casting of that first stone. ~ Sally Stanford

There can be no greater stretch of arbitrary power than to seize children from their parents, teach them whatever the authorities decree they shall be taught, and expropriate from the parents the funds to pay for the procedure. ~ Isabel Paterson

To count upon his virtue and use it as an instrument of torture, to practice blackmail with the victim's generosity as sole means of extortion, to accept the gift of a man's good will and turn it into a tool for the giver's destruction. ~ Ayn Rand

By 2005, Monsanto had filed ninety lawsuits against U.S. farmers for patent infringement, meaning GM genes found in the fields of farmers that had not paid for the right, and Monsanto had been awarded over $15 million. I'll tell you here and now: We have a screwed-up justice system. These lawsuits and seeds are nothing less than corporate extortion of American farmers, said Andrew Kimbrell, director of the Center for Food Safety, as reported in the Seed Savers Summer Edition 2005. ~ Janisse Ray

I thought about the core tools we EHMs used in my day: false economics that included distorted financial analyses, inflated projections, and rigged accounting books; secrecy, deception, threats, bribes, and extortion; false promises that we never intended to honor; and enslavement through debt and fear. These same tools are used today. Now, as then, many elements are present in each "hit," although that likely is evident only to someone willing to delve deeply into the story behind the story. Now, as then, the glue that holds all of this together is the belief that any means are justified to achieve the desired ends. A ~ John Perkins

...the conduct of another class, equally criminal, and, if possible, more mischievous has hitherto passed with that impunity.... I mean that tribe who...have carried the spirit
of monopoly and extortion to an excess which scarcely admits of a parallel. When avarice takes the lead in a state, it is commonly the forerunner of its fall. How shocking is it to discover among ourselves, even at this early period, the strongest symptoms of this fatal disease? ~ Alexander Hamilton

Power's not a chalice. It's a hammer. And it only does one thing. Power smashes. The subtext of all power is extortion. It's always the threat of force, of imprisonment, the threat of death. Always. ~ Adam Skelter

If government were a product, selling it would be illegal. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

IS THERE A DIFFERENCE between shame and guilt?" Anna asked. "Shame is psychic extortion," Doktor Messerli answered. "Shame lies. Shame a woman and she will believe she is fundamentally wrong, organically delinquent. The only confidence she will have will be in her failures. You will never convince her otherwise. ~ Jill Alexander Essbaum

Money, dished out in quantities fitting the context, is a social lubricant here. It eases passage even as it maintains hierarchies. Fifty naira for the man who helps you back out from the parking spot, two hundred naira for the police officer who stops you for no good reason in the dead of night, ten thousand for the clearing agent who helps you bring your imported crate through customs. For each transaction, there is a suitable amount that helps things on their way. No one else seems to worry, as I do, that the money demanded by someone whose finger hovers over the trigger of a AK-47 is less a tip than a ransom. I feel that my worrying about it is a luxury that few can afford. For many Nigerians, the giving and receiving of bribes, tips, extortion money, or alms
the categories are fluid
is not thought of in moral terms. It is seen either as a mild irritant or as an opportunity. It is a way of getting things done, neither more nor less than what money is there for. ~ Teju Cole

When more of the people's sustenance is exacted through the form of taxation than is necessary to meet the just obligations of government and expenses of its economical administration, such exaction becomes ruthless extortion and a violation of the fundamental principles of free government. ~ Grover Cleveland

From the first extortion he had accepted, from the first directive he had obeyed, he had given them cause to believe that reality was a thing to be cheated, that one could demand the irrational and someone somehow would provide it. ~ Ayn Rand