Quotes & Sayings About Extortion

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

Let me enlighten you. We are a pack of liars, thieves, and wastrels, the lot of
us...There is not an honestly gained parcel of land in the whole earldom. Every acre, every village was stolen through one reprehensible manner or another. Deceit, blackmail, extortion, all of
it. It's disgusting."

Alex waited a moment to make sure Whit was quite through before asking, "How long ago?"

"Did we steal the land, do you mean?"
Alex nodded.

"Up until about a hundred years ago, then the wastrels took over. — Alissa Johnson

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

I was associated with a woman who I was involved with and had a relationship with. She asked for money. I felt as though I was being blackmailed or there was some sort of extortion. — David Boreanaz

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

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

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

Of course, men often 'use their economic superiority to gain sexual advantages,' but women often use their sexual superiority to gain economic advantages. So who is the extortionist? — David P. Bryden

Free-market economics is an antiquated, smutty and careless box of tricks whose whimsical main flaw is clear even to a child. Still look how many adults fall breathlessly with lust to its promise
even though they must abandon empathy and moral judgment to embrace it.
Their dirty secret puts all their intelligence to work throwing dust in the air around one glaring truth: that without trickery or eroding value, without extortion, manipulation, deceit or outright theft
profit will simply not perpetually grow. — D.B.C. Pierre

I need you to scry for Lousha," he said. "You told me once that you could."
"Yeah, I can get you in her vicinity."
Garreth had taken Lucia's scent into him and could find her from miles away.
"That'll work."
Witches could come in handy, he supposed.
"But I don't do gratis."
Garreth bluidy hated witches! "Charge me what you will! Just give me the fucking coordinates."
In the background, he heard Bowen say, "Mari, never let it be said that I doona support your extortion
"
"Entrepreneurial-ness," she corrected.
"But a family discount, love, would no' be amiss."
"The whole family? Fine," she said. "I'm scrying." While Garreth waited, she groused about how extended the "MacRieve pack" was. — Kresley Cole

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

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

Extortion rarely paves the straightest path to truth. — Douglas J. Bornemann

The historical system of mutual pillage and extortion stops here on Arrakis," his father said. "You cannot go on forever stealing what you need without regard to those who come after. The physical qualities of a planet are written into its economic and political record. — Frank Herbert

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

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

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

I don't think it's bribery; I think it's extortion. Bribery, you know, is when the person that's giving the money does it voluntarily. What it is in Washington is extortion because they all ask for the money. — John McCain

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

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

for Alinsky, democratic politics is basically a mechanism of legal extortion, justified by appeals to justice and equality. A — Dinesh D'Souza

Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion.
Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.
They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution.
They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead. — Henry A. Wallace

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

Blackmail threats are e-mails from madmen. — Michael Bassey Johnson

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

Today is Valentine's Day - or, as men like to call it, Extortion Day! — Jay Leno

Newspapers are a centre of public culture. We can't give in to extortion. — Alexander Lebedev

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

As things get worse and the State seems powerless to help, the State will seem less and less legitimate. People will lose their moral connection to it. Laws will seem more like revenue traps and shakedowns. The state will start to seem more like another extortion racket, and, as in Mexico, people will have a harder time telling the good guys from the bad guys. — Jack Donovan