Wealth Corruption Quotes

Why does corruption in government always surprise us? Why do we expect anything else from it? Government is organized force. It takes our wealth and makes war. And we think honest men would do that work? ~ Joseph Sobran

As the seemingly well-intentioned French journalist spoke about Africa's scarcity and its limited resources, Nine smiled to himself almost condescendingly. He considered such statements an absolute joke. Africa did not, nor did it ever have, limited resources.

Nine knew something the journalist obviously didn't: Africa was the most abundantly resourced continent on the planet bar none. Like the despots who ruled much of the region, and the foreign governments who propped them up, he knew there was more than enough wealth in Africa's mineral resources such as gold, diamonds and oil – not to mention the land that nurtured these resources – for every man, woman and child.

He thought it unfortunate Africa had never been able to compete on a level playing field. The continent's almost unlimited resources were the very reason foreigners had meddled in African affairs for the past century or more. Nine knew it was Omega's plan, and that of other greedy organizations, to siphon as much wealth as they could out of vulnerable Third World countries, especially in Africa.

The same organizations had the formula down pat: they indirectly started civil wars in mineral-rich regions by providing arms to opposing local factions, and sometimes even helped to create famines, in order to destabilize African countries. This made the targeted countries highly vulnerable to international control. Once the outside organizations had divided and conquered, they were ~ James Morcan

The desire to gain wealth and the fear to lose it are our chief breeders of cowardice and propagators of corruption. ~ William James

the days of
the bosses, yellow men
with bad breath and big feet, men
who look like frogs, hyenas, men who walk
as if melody had never been invented, men
who think it is intelligent to hire and fire and
profit, men with expensive wives they possess
like 60 acres of ground to be drilled
or shown off or to be walled away from
the incompetent, men who'd kill you
because they're crazy and justify it because
it's the law, men who stand in front of
windows 30 feet wide and see nothing,
men with luxury yachts who can sail around
the world and never get out of their vest
pockets, men like snails, men like eels, men
like slugs, and not as good...

- something for the touts, the nuns, the grocery clerks and you... ~ Charles Bukowski

The company of just and righteous men is better than wealth and a rich estate. ~ Euripides

Virtually every politician portrayed in film or on television over the last decade has been venal, corrupt, opportunistic, cynical, if not worse. Whether these dramatized images are accurate or exagerated matters little. The corporatist system wins either way: directly through corruption and indirectly through the damage done to the citizen's respect for the representative system.
(III - From Corporatism to Democracy) ~ John Ralston Saul

But though a funded debt is not in the first instance, an absolute increase of Capital, or an augmentation of real wealth; yet by serving as a New power in the operation of industry, it has within certain bounds a tendency to increase the real wealth of a Community, in like manner as money borrowed by a thrifty farmer, to be laid out in the improvement of his farm may, in the end, add to his Stock of real riches. ~ Alexander Hamilton

Both political parties have a richly vested interest in corporate corruption. ~ Arianna Huffington

We are living at a time where a handful of people have wealth beyond comprehension - huge yachts, jet planes, tens of billions of dollars, more money than they could spend in a thousand lifetimes. But at the same time, millions of people are struggling to feed their families or put a roof over their heads or find the money to go to a doctor. ~ Bernie Sanders

Bare-faced covetousness was the moving spirit of civilization from its first dawn to the present day; wealth, and again wealth, and for the third time wealth; wealth, not of society, but of the puny individual, was its only and final aim. ~ Friedrich Engels

If your god is money, you will always be poor; but if your god is love, you will always be rich. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Witta feared nothing - except to be poor. ~ Rudyard Kipling

No matter how much evidence we uncover about this case or any others involving Mr. Clinton, millions of Americans simply will not care - they will excuse the corruption because they like Bill Clinton. ~ Bill O'Reilly

When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down,and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied,then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery ... But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today. ~ Anonymous

I think it's child abuse to have someone in the public eye too young. Society basically values wealth and fame and power at the cost of well-being. In the case of a child, it's at the cost of someone's natural development. It's already hard enough to develop. ~ Alanis Morissette

In her experience people had worries or they had tons of money, not both. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

All governments are corrupt and only thing that varies between them is the level of corruption. ~ Steven Magee

VII
From my village I see as much of the universe as can be seen
from the earth,
And so my village is as large as any town,
For I am the size of what I see
And not the size of my height ...
In the cities life is smaller
Than here in my house on top of this hill.
The big buildings of cities lock up the view,
They hide the horizon, pulling our gaze far away from the
open sky.
They make us small, for they take away all the vastness our
eyes can see,
And they make us poor, for our only wealth is seeing. ~ Fernando Pessoa

She perceived vaguely the pitiful corruption of the adult world; how cruel and frail it was, like a worn piece of burlap, patched with stupidities and mistakes, useless and ugly, and yet they never saw its worthlessness. ~ John Cheever

I am a congenital optimist about America, but I worry that American democracy is exhibiting fatal symptoms. DC has become an acronym for Dysfunctional Capital: a swamp in which partisanship has grown poisonous, relations between the White House and Congress have paralyzed basic functions like budgets and foreign agreements, and public trust in government has all but disappeared. These symptoms are rooted in the decline of a public ethic, legalized and institutionalized corruption, a poorly educated and attention-deficit-driven electorate, and a 'gotcha' press - all exacerbated by digital devices and platforms that reward sensationalism and degrade deliberation. Without stronger and more determined leadership from the president and a recovery of a sense of civic responsibility among the governing class, the United States may follow Europe down the road of decline. ~ Graham Allison

Grace is released more abundantly as you work. ~ Sunday Adelaja

Peace is the happy natural state of man; war is corruption and disgrace. ~ James Thomson

You experience two kinds of guilt. One is the reality of your culpability before God. You have transgressed his law - you are guilty. The other is the sense of your corruption. You feel guilty. The first kind of guilt is true of you because everyone is a sinner. But not everyone knows the second kind. Until a person knows his guilt, he cannot know pardon. Until you feel the bondage of your guilt, you cannot find the freedom of forgiveness. In this sense, guilt is not your enemy. ~ Joe Thorn

You have deep within you the power to fulfill your highest vision of your life. To engage this power you must develop a solid personal relationship with yourself. By doing so, you'll tap into a wealth of inner strength that will allow you to take the necessary actions that build confidence and self-esteem. When you learn to stop hiding your power and use fear to your advantage, you'll become less attached to what others want for you and more attached to what you want for yourself. As this shift occurs, you'll naturally begin to lead a more authentic and passionate life. ~ Cheryl Richardson

With deregulation, privatisation, free trade, what we're seeing is yet another enclosure and, if you like, private taking of the commons. One of the things I find very interesting in our current debates is this concept of who creates wealth. That wealth is only created when it's owned privately. What would you call clean water, fresh air, a safe environment? Are they not a form of wealth? And why does it only become wealth when some entity puts a fence around it and declares it private property? Well, you know, that's not wealth creation. That's wealth usurpation. ~ Elaine Bernard

If you want to be successful, begin to work zealously and persistently ~ Sunday Adelaja

Of course you want to be rich and famous. It's natural. Wealth and fame are what every man desires. The question is: What are you willing to trade for it? ~ Confucius

Many a beggar at the crossway, or gray-haired shepherd on the plain, hath more of the end of all wealth than hundreds who multiply the means. ~ Martin Farquhar Tupper

Gold is cold, and men who possess much of it are infected with its chill. ~ S.M. Carriere

Idleness leads to relaxation, sooner or later bringing about ideological and material corruption, accompanied by lack of discipline, anarchy chaos and defeat. ~ Samora Machel

Few things are necessary to make the wise man happy while no amount of material wealth would satisfy a fool. I am not a fool. ~ Og Mandino

In this world of ours, a world of powerful centers and subjugated outposts, there is no wealth that must not be held in some suspicion. ~ Eduardo Galeano

Facts about Jesus that I told Kimberly to annoy her
1. Jesus was Jewish
2. Jesus was a socialist
3. Jesus was a refugee
4. Jesus was anti-death penalty
5. Jesus was anti-school prayer (Matthew 6:5)
6. Jesus was opposed to the accumulation of wealth
7. Jesus was silent on the issues of homosexuality and gay marriage
8. Jesus was a brown-skinned Middle Easterner who wore sandals to the dinner table
9. Jesus was a friend to prostitutes ~ Matthew Dicks

It's appalling that there should be hunger anywhere, but particularly in a country like America, where there is also such great wealth. ~ Elizabeth Hurley

This was the fall of 2004. The wider world was deeply fucked, and home also. Two American wars raging - bloodbaths each, bloodbath major and bloodbath minor, ugly, squirrelly hateful clandestine wars marked by betrayal, incompetence and corruption. Don't get me started. ~ Claire Messud

Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty. ~ Edward Gibbon

The origin of all revolutions and corruption, and the spur and source of all base morals are just two sayings: The First Saying: 'So long as I'm full, what is it to me if others die of hunger?' The Second Saying: 'You suffer hardship so that I can live in ease; you work so that I can eat.' ~ Said Nursi

Will you gather daydreams or will you gather wealth? How can you find your fortune when you cannot find yourself? ~ Gordon Lightfoot

One might think that economic inequality leads to self-correction in democracies, as the public becomes alarmed or outraged by income gaps and institutes taxes or other policies to take from the rich or give to the poor. But this doesn't happen often. Researchers have found that instead, in countries around the world, the accumulation of wealth also often leads to accumulation of political power that is then harnessed to multiply that wealth. Indeed, that's what we're seeing in America. Our political system responds to large donors, so politicians create benefits for the rich, who then reward the politicians who created them. ~ Nicholas D. Kristof

Snowbound up here with you. Without books or business to occupy my time, I wonder what I'll do," he added with a leer.
She blushed gorgeously, but her voice was serious as she studied his face. "If things hadn't gone so well for you-if you hadn't accumulated so much wealth-you could have been happy up here, couldn't you?"
"With you?"
"Of course."
His smile was as somber as hers. "Absolutely."
"Although," he added, linking her hands behind her back and drawing her a little closer, "you may not want to remain up here when you learn your emeralds are back in their cases at Montmayne."
Her head snapped up, and her eyes shone with love and relief. "I'm so glad. When I realized Robert's story had been fabrication, it hurt beyond belief to realize I'd sold them."
"It's going to hurt more," he teased outrageously, "when you realize your bank draft to cover their cost was a little bit short. It cost me $45,000 to buy back the pieces that had already been sold, and $5,000 to buy the rest back from the jeweler you sold them to."
"That-that unconscionable thief!" she burst out. "He only gave me $5,000 for all of them!" She shook her head in despair at Ian's lack of bargaining prowess. "He took dreadful advantage of you."
"I wasn't concerned, however," Ian continued teasing, enjoying himself hugely, "because I knew I'd get it all back out of your allowance. With interest, of course. According to my figures," he said, pausing to calculate in his ~ Judith McNaught

The corruption of the best is the worst ... ~ Maude Royden

Corruption is subtle, just like the Bible said. Many young poets have come to me and asked, How am I gonna make it? They feel, and often with considerable justice, that they are being overlooked while others with less talent are out there making careers for themselves. I always give the same advice. I say, Do it the hard way, and you'll always feel good about yourself. You write because you have to, and you get this unbelievable satisfaction from doing it well. Try to live on that as long as you're able. ~ Philip Levine

The poor, I am told, are kind to each other but that is because they have nothing to lose,' he said. 'The rich cannot afford to be. ~ M.R.C. Kasasian

...the emperor had the poor under control, and poverty could continue to serve its purpose – as a precondition for wealth. ~ Jens Bjørneboe

The mind is key. If anything should be considered a god, so to speak, it is the mind, not money. A healthy positive mind is the utmost priority. But if we were to reverse the order of these priorities, what would happen? I find it hard to imagine how a person with great wealth, bad health, no friends, and no peace of mind could feel even slightly happy. ~ Dalai Lama

I have no interest in celebrities. If all the superrich disappeared, the world economy would not even notice. The superrich are irrelevant to the economy. ~ Peter Drucker

If, with all the time at my disposal, with all the wealth of the resources of this vast universe, to do with as I will, I could not produce a better scheme of life than now prevails, I would be ashamed of my efforts and consider my work a humiliating failure. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

The weak will try to convince you that weakness is strength. ~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

out of our insane duty to fear, fashion, and monthly payments on things we don't really need - we quarantine our travels to short, frenzied bursts. In this way, as we throw our wealth at an abstract notion called "lifestyle," travel becomes just another accessory - a smooth-edged, encapsulated experience that we purchase in the same way we buy clothing and furniture. Not ~ Timothy Ferriss

The present Arab uprising didn't stem from Israel. The old guard is trying to keep down the young chickens. The old guard is better organized. They may win elections, but unless they have a solution to poverty, to corruption, to oppression, they will not last. I am with the young people. ~ Shimon Peres

Christianity, democracy, science, education, wealth, and the cumulative inheritance of a thousand years, have not preserved us from the vain repetition of history. ~ Ralph Adams Cram