Quotes & Sayings About Corrupt Politicians

Adam expected Mayor Gusherowski to look like a fat-cat politico fresh off the graft train - soft build, ruddy complexion, practiced smile, maybe a pinkie ring - and in this particular case, Adam was not disappointed. Adam wondered whether Gusherowski had always looked like a poster boy for corrupt politicians or if, over his years of "service," it had just become part of his DNA. Three — Harlan Coben

I'm Dan Gelber. As a federal prosecutor, I helped put away corporate criminals, corrupt politicians and violent gangs. — Dan Gelber

We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive people, but of course we are. Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed? Why else would we be rewarding its destroyers? Why else would we all - by proxies we have given to greedy corporations and corrupt politicians - be participating in its destruction? Most of us are still too sane to piss in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so and we reward them for it. We reward them so well, in fact, that those who piss in our cistern are wealthier than the rest of us.
How do we submit? By not being radical enough. Or by not being thorough enough, which is the same thing. — Wendell Berry

I want to be a politician. I think I understand how the system works, I think a lot of politicians are corrupt, and it's about time we put some people in there who are going to look out for the majority of the people instead of the rich people. — Charles Barkley

The government of my country snubs honest simplicity but fondles artistic villainy, and I think I might have developed into a very capable pickpocket if I had remained in the public service a year or two. — Mark Twain

Under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a company is not allowed to provide a personal benefit to a decision maker in return for business. But hiring the sons and daughters of powerful executives and politicians is hardly just the province of banks doing business in China: it has been a time-tested practice here in the United States. — Andrew Ross Sorkin

If we elect the same corrupt politicians every time, that's a very clear message that we don't want a change. — Sukant Ratnakar

That is the problem with this rich and anguished generation. Somewhere a long time ago they fell in love with the idea that politicians- even the slickest and brightest presidential candidates- were real heroes and truly exciting people. That is wrong on its face. They are mainly dull people with corrupt instincts and criminal children. — Hunter S. Thompson

People do not want politicians they know to be corrupt. — Paddy Ashdown

For years, liberals have demonstrated a near religious devotion to the cause of 'cleaning up elections' with campaign finance reform, the wondrous panacea that would finally rescue our great country from corruption in politics ... How anyone could believe that corrupt politicians could or would legislate away their own corruption is completely beyond me. — Anthony Gregory

What if we were to subject public servants like politicians to a battery of psychological tests like the MMPI? Maybe we could determine which of them were more likely to become corrupt and save them the trouble of lengthy, expensive campaigns where they are ultimately harassed by greedy corporations. — Aaron B. Powell

I met too frankly preposterous, if it weren't for their banal evil, politicians and pastors who told knowing lies about the evils of homosexuality in order to attract bigger flocks to their churches and more votes and power to their corrupt councils. LGBT people seem to be being scapegoated more and more just as at the same time in more enlightened countries more and more freedom to express themselves, marry, be given official intersex status and so on is offered. — Stephen Fry

I have realized why corrupt politicians do nothing to improve the quality of public school education. They are terrified of educated voters. — Miriam

From top to bottom we have: the seducers whipped by demons ... the flatterers adrift in human excrement ... the clerical profiteers half buried upside down with their legs in the air ... the sorcerers with their heads twisted backward ... the corrupt politicians in boiling pitch ... the hypocrites wearing heavy leaden cloaks ... the thieves bitten by snakes ... the fraudulent counselors consumed by fire ... the sowers of discord hacked apart by demons ... and finally, the liars, who are diseased beyond recognition. — Dan Brown

Sexual orthodoxy and the exercise of power. If a President can't keep his pants on, does he lose the right to rule us? If a public servant cheats on his wife does this make him more likely to cheat on the electorate? For myself, I'd rather be ruled by an adulterer, by some sexual rogue, than by a prim celibate or zipped-up spouse. As criminals tend to specialize in certain crimes, so corrupt politicians normally specialize in their corruption: the sexual blackguards stick to fucking, the bribe-takers to graft. In which case it would make more sense to elect proven adulterers instead of discouraging them from public life. I — Julian Barnes

Pakistanis can't trust. They've seen in history that people, particularly politicians, are corrupt. And they're misguided by people in the name of Islam. They're told: 'Malala is not a Muslim, she's not in purdah, she's working for America.' — Malala Yousafzai

For many, the regressive belief in superstitions and miracles is an escape from the hardships of life. Once trapped into irrationalism, they become more incapable of mastering reality. It is a vicious circle, like an addiction. They become vulnerable to exploitation by astrologers, godmen, dubious pseudo-psychologists, corrupt politicians and the whole mega-industry of irrationalism. — Sanal Edamaruku

Corruption is worse than terrorism. Terrorists blow up existing infrastructure such as roads, airports and power plants. Corruption prevents such infrastructure from being created in the first place. Terrorists take innocent lives. Corrupt politicians prevent hospitals from being built, which means that innocent lives — Chetan Bhagat

Our fight is a fundamental fight against both of the old corrupt party machines, for both are under the dominion of the plunder league of the professional politicians who are controlled and sustained by the great beneficiaries of privilege and reaction. — Theodore Roosevelt

I don't believe in happy endings," Flynn said, spinning Tess and tilting up her chin. "Just happy beginnings. — Brynn Kelly

As long as we, in the United States, continue to insist that our politicians have to spend all of their time raising millions of dollars for television ads, it will be corrupt. If we leave it up to the politicians to clean up lobbying and finance reform, nothing is going to change. — Kevin Spacey

I often hear people talk about how corrupt their politicians are, it makes me laugh because, the very same people who are complaining are just as corrupt. When they get to those same places of authority, they do exactly the same thing for which they were complaining against the previous politicians. — Sunday Adelaja

The democracy of riot squads, corrupt politicians, magnate-controlled newspapers and the surveillance state looks as phony and fragile as East Germany did thirty years ago. — Paul Mason

But if you do not have the Tao yourself, what business have you spending your time in vain efforts to bring corrupt politicians into the right path? — Confucius

Truth will never shine from a heart filled with corruption and lies. — Suzy Kassem

Little had changed after independence. Jomo Kenyatta's face hung in a framed portrait in every shop where Queen Elizabeth's had been. Some schools were built, some streets renamed. But educated people are a liability in a dictatorship: all the schools were underfunded, few of them succeeded. A great deal of foreign money was given to the government and most of it ended up in the pockets of politicians, some of whom were assassinated. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the fatness of corrupt African politicians. — Paul Theroux

Let's be clear: all professions look bad in the movies. And there's a good reason for this. Movies don't portray career paths, they conscript interesting lifestyles to serve a plot. So lawyers are all unscrupulous and doctors are all uncaring. Psychiatrists are all crazy, and politicians are all corrupt. All cops are psychopaths, and all businessmen are crooks. Even moviemakers come off badly: directors are megalomaniacs, actors are spoiled brats. Since all occupations are portrayed negatively, why expect scientists to be treated differently? — Michael Crichton

Port Royal, Jamaica, was built for pirates. The town had a well-protected harbor, corrupt politicians and townsfolk, and a set of ethics that seemed passed down from Sodom and Gomorrah. — Robert Kurson

People - pardon me, journalists and politicians - have often accused me of believing that I'm above the law. And yet, who isn't? Everywhere you prod it, even with the shortest stick, the established system isn't simply corrupt, it's unequivocally putrescent. The law is created by demonstrable criminals, enforced by demonstrable, interpreted by demonstrable criminals, all for demonstrably criminal purposes. Of course I'm above the law. And so are you. — L. Neil Smith

We have come to expect campaigns to be mean and stupid and politicians to be unresponsive, self-seeking and for sale to the highest bidder. We make jokes about our vice president, and all we ask of a president is that he be likeable. We seem to have given up on the Pentagon's corrupt use of our tax dollars. — Donella Meadows

We find two great gangs of political speculators, who alternately take possession of the state power and exploit it by the most corrupt ends
the nation is powerless against these two great cartels of politicians who are ostensibly its servants, but in reality dominate and plunder it. — Friedrich Engels

All problems, depressions, wars, disasters, assassinations, all of them were planned, caused, instigated, and implemented by the International Bankers and their attempt to establish a central bank in every country in the world, which they have now done, thanks to corrupt politicians who have been bought and paid for. This is all you need to know about the history of the world. — John F. Kennedy

The ungodly put the ungodly in office. And now we're expecting them to be godly and treat us with love and kindness? It is impossible for the ungodly to elect the ungodly and then expect godliness to come from them. The corrupt elect the corrupt and the corruption continues. The depraved elect the depraved and the depravity continues. If you want kindness, love, peace, patience, goodness, and faithfulness - the characteristics you will find in godly men and women - you better get godly in a hurry and elect as many godly politicians as you can. — Phil Robertson

As long as ordinary citizens are as corrupt as the politicians in their daily lifestyle, the country will continue to suffer. — Sunday Adelaja

A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims ... but accomplices — George Orwell

I don't want to paint myself as some kind of saint - that would be laughable - but I do think I've been able over the years to write humanely about subjects who are controversial and even contemptible. I've profiled pedophiles, stalkers, serial rapists, prison gang members and corrupt politicians. — Robert Draper

Its easy to view politicians as corrupt and voting essentially an act of picking the lesser of two evils. I understand that perspective and feel it's valid. — Macklemore

Why do decent young men and women become bullies? Why do soldiers dream of being heroes but end up abusing prisoners and shooting civilians? Why do politicians become corrupt? Why do cops beat suspects senseless and break the laws they're meant to protect? — Louise Penny

In the tired hand of a dying man, Theodore Senior had written: The 'Machine politicians' have shown their colors ... I feel sorry for the country however as it shows the power of partisan politicians who think of nothing higher than their own interests, and I feel for your future. We cannot stand so corrupt a government for any great length of time. — Edmund Morris

It is simply untrue that all our institutions are evil, ... that all politicians are mere opportunists, that all aspects of university life are corrupt. Having discovered an illness, it's not terribly useful to prescribe death as a cure. — George McGovern

Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad. — Henry Kissinger

Indians mock their corrupt politicians relentlessly, but they regard their honest politicians with silent suspicion. The first thing they do when they hear of a supposedly 'clean' politician is to grin. It is a cliche that honest politicians in India tend to have dishonest sons, who collect money from people seeking an audience with Dad. — Aravind Adiga