Government Is Corrupt Quotes & Sayings

The only person on this ship who gets paid for what they do is you, Alix. The rest of us live off our trust funds and we use those funds for our humanitarian missions. I do what I do because I can't stand to see innocent people bullied by a corrupt government. I don't want to see a baby starve and die because some fat politician wants to work its parents into the ground for a mineral most of them can't even pronounce. (Devyn) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I think Katrina is one more indication of how inefficient and corrupt this Administration is, and indicates the absolute lack of seriousness that [George W.]Bush has in making the government respond to the needs of the people. They are so separated from the lives of normal, low-income people that it never occurred to them that if you're poor and have no money, no car, that you can't leave. — Bernie Sanders

China need to be fought back on. And what we need to do is go at the things that they are most sensitive and most embarrassing to them; that they're hiding; get that information and put it out in public. Let the Chinese people start to digest how corrupt the Chinese government is; how they steal from the Chinese people; and how they're enriching oligarchs all throughout China. — Chris Christie

It seems that the problem with government as an institution is uniformly bad, worldwide. It may be the ONLY thing that binds all nations together - the incompetence of all of their governments ... The unions are the mafia, which is the CIA, which is the Catholic Church, which is the government, which is what's the difference? It's corrupt! It's the same guys pulling these strings, you know? One day he pulls the string and this lamp comes out, the next say he pulls the string and there's a missile coming out. — Frank Zappa

Taxes should be continued by annual or biennial reeactments, because a constant hold, by the nation, of the strings of the public purse is a salutary restraint from which an honest government ought not wish, nor a corrupt one to be permitted, to be free. — Thomas Jefferson

My own view on capital punishment is that it is morally justified, but that the government is often so inept and corrupt that innocent people might die as a result. Thus, I personally oppose capital punishment. — Ed Crane

A system is corrupt when it is strictly profit-driven, not driven to serve the best interests of its people, but those of multinational corporations. — Suzy Kassem

People often don't understand the engine that drives corruption. Particularly in India, they assume government equals corruption, private companies equal efficiency. But government officials are not genetically programmed to be corrupt. Corruption is linked to power. If it is the corporations that are powerful, then they will be corrupt. — Arundhati Roy

The thing I love so much about the UN, is that they're so obviously corrupt. It's not like the Oil-for-Food scandal was even hard to discover, it was almost a parody of corruption. The behavior of the delegates in New York is comically corrupt as well. The amazing thing is that there are still people who want to give the UN MORE power, and to become a real world government ... Sigh — John Hamill

The Limit of this obligation to obedience [to the civil government] will be found only when we are commanded to do something contrary to the to the superior authority of God (Acts iv. 19; v. 29); or when the civil government has become so radically and incurably corrupt that it has ceased to accomplish the ends for which it was established. When that point has unquestionably been reached, when all means of redress have been exhausted without avail, when there appears no prospect of securing reform in the government itself, and some good prospect of securing it by revolution, then it is the privilege and duty of a Christian people to change their government - peacefully if they may, forcibly if they must. — Archibald Alexander Hodge

Here's a secret intel bulletin for all y'all who've never left Yoknapatawpha County and imagine the United States is constantly on the precipice of enemy invasion - the only way this country is ever going to surrender its liberty to a foreign power is if it keeps electing corrupt officials who auction it away to multinational corporations and overseas government interests in exactly the fashion that southern star chambers have been doing to their own people throughout their entire dyspeptic history. — Chuck Thompson

THE time, it is to be hoped, is gone by when any defence would be necessary of the "liberty of the press" as one of the securities against corrupt or tyrannical government. — John Stuart Mill

The subjugation of news by entertainment seriously harms our democracy: It leads to dysfunctional journalism that fails to inform the people. And when the people are not informed, they cannot hold government accountable when it is incompetent, corrupt, or both. — Al Gore

The Afghan government is as corrupt as a prostitute with a law degree. — Craig Ferguson

When a nation is over-reliant on one or two commodities like oil or precious minerals, corrupt government ministers and their dodgy associates hoard profits and taxes instead of properly allocating them to schools and hospitals. — Bono

Because I took an oath to help people. To protect them from The League and any corrupt government. (Devyn)
Yeah, and I know people better than to believe that for even an instant. Altruism is dead. People use and they take until you're nothing but a bleeding corpse on the ground at their feet. (Alix) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Nature is in the process of shutting down corrupt corporations and their government minions. — Steven Magee

The mechanism that directs government cannot be virtuous, because it is impossible to thwart every crime, to protect oneself from every criminal without being criminal too; that which directs corrupt mankind must be corrupt itself; and it will never be by means of virtue, virtue being inert and passive, that you will maintain control over vice, which is ever active: the governor must be more energetic than the governed. — Marquis De Sade

The constitution has broken down. We have no enemies except the ones we select and direct towards the nearest nuclear bombs. They need an enemy to provoke, a diversion. This is the mentality of tenth-rate people who are in politics because corporate America likes them. They are malleable. They give them contracts to build missile shields that will never work. It's deeply corrupt. — Gore Vidal

When a plutocracy is disguised as a democracy, the system is beyond corrupt. — Suzy Kassem

Lay then the axe to the root, and teach governments humanity. It is their sanguinary punishments which corrupt mankind. — Thomas Paine

Right now, the technological world plus God or spirituality is evolving. I think America has become a little bit too corrupt, government's a little too corrupt, too greedy. Many corporations are too greedy. The labor unions are too greedy. That effects charities and religious organizations. I just think it's greed. That's why, in 1985, I had to figure out how to give before I received. The more I focus on giving, for less and less, the more and more I make. — Robert Kiyosaki

Every government is always growing corrupt. — Wendell Phillips

The virtue of small government is that the mistakes are small as well ... If you want to leave a nation you think is corrupt, inefficient, militaristic, oppressive, repressive, but you don't want to move to Canada or France, what do you do? Well, the way is through secession, where you could stay home and be where you want to be. — Kirkpatrick Sale

There are two parties involved in every corrupt transaction, typically a government official and a business person. Yet those who pay bribes are often depicted as innocent victims ... The reality is that both parties conspire to defraud the public. — Lynda Chalker, Baroness Chalker Of Wallasey

The power of a corrupt government is located in the ignorance and indifference of its people - rjs — Rassool Jibraeel Snyman

The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens ... Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere. — Leo Tolstoy

A woefully corrupt and incompetent government is only a problem to the taxpayer. — Lee Broad

It hit us all of a sudden, one night after one of these mouth-marathons, that anyone who has a complaint ought to have to qualify and be certified first. I mean, here's somebody who thinks it's just awful about the dirty water and the foul air. What is he doing about the solid waste he creates in his own house? What kind of poison-factory is he driving, and does he keep it running in such a way as to minimize the junk it puts into the air? Does he support government people he knows are corrupt, or by apathy just let them go on corrupting? The more we heard this kind of crap from these hobby gripers, the more we felt that a man should qualify to complain, just as he has to qualify to drive a bus or cut an appendix or run a ferryboat. Or vote. And if we were going to be honest about it, we had to look at ourselves. Point a finger at anybody and you'll find you have three fingers pointing at you. — Theodore Sturgeon

You can see signs of a roaring economy. You can sense economic growth. You know it's happening. You're part of it. It is affecting you. Seventy-five percent of Americans think the government is corrupt. — Rush Limbaugh

Strictly enforce the scale of "fixed responsibility." The first and foremost level of responsibility is with the individual himself; the second level is the family; then the church; next the community, finally the county, and, in a disaster or emergency, the state. Under no circumstances is the federal government to become involved in public welfare. The Founders felt it would corrupt the government and also the poor. No Constitutional authority exists for the federal government to participate in charity or welfare. — W. Cleon Skousen

When the police is corrupt,
it says something about the government.
At least.

P. Hermans — Petra Hermans

Tom DeLay himself has never been the issue. DeLay is a symptom of a larger disease?a sick Republican culture of corruption that touches everyone who took his dirty money, voted for his corrupt leadership, or sat silently while their party has sold our government to the highest bidder. — Howard Dean

Here then is an infallible criterion, by which the nation may judge of the intentions of those who govern it ... if they corrupt the morals of the people, spread a taste for luxury, effeminacy, a rage for licentious pleasures, - if they stimulate the higher orders to a ruinous pomp and extravagance, - beware, citizens! beware of those corruptors! they only aim at purchasing slaves in order to exercise over them an arbitrary sway. — Emer De Vattel

I think the American government is now the most corrupt government in the world. — Ginger Baker

Big government is the most corrupt industry in America. — Malcolm Wallop

Many Nigerians believe that Babangida 'institutionalized corruption', yet few admit their own complicity in creating the situation where corruption became the norm. The citizenry are simultaneously victims, accomplices and active participants in their own corrupt downfall. Corruption in Nigeria is not just an offshoot of collapsed social and governmental institutions, nor is it the result of a hostile economic environment. The roots go much deeper and are more symptomatic of a residual breakdown of Nigerian societal values and morality. It is the result of a nationwide refusal to condemn dishonesty... While the government must take blame for not cracking down on corruption, the public deserves its share of blame for encouraging it, and letting the government get away with it. — Max Siollun

My government is going to deal with all forms of corruption. White-collar corruption will be high on the list and we are going to plug all gaps that are being used by corrupt leaders (and) business people. — Jakaya Kikwete

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

The corporate government is heavily influenced by the utility company cartel. — Steven Magee

Tyrants are obvious, and easy to identify. It is the well entrenched and corrupt establishment that is truly insidious. — A.E. Samaan

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today. — Theodore Roosevelt

The predominant teachings of this age are that there are no limits to man's capacity to govern others and that, therefore, no limitations ought to be imposed upon government. The older faith, born of long ages of suffering under man's dominion over man, was that the exercise of unlimited power by men with limited minds and self-regarding prejudices is soon oppressive, reactionary, and corrupt. The older faith taught that the very condition of progress was the limitation of power to the capacity and the virtue of rulers. — Walter Lippmann

Make no mistake. The greatest destroyer of ecology. The greatest source of waste, depletion and pollution. The greatest purveyor of violence, war, crime, poverty, animal abuse and inhumanity. The greatest generator of personal and social neurosis, mental disorders, depression, anxiety. Not to mention the greatest source of social paralysis, stopping us from moving into new methodologies for personal health, global sustainability and progress on this planet, is not some corrupt government or legislation.
Not some rogue corporation or banking cartel.
Not some flaw of human nature and not some secret cabal that controls the world.
It is the socioeconomic system itself at its very foundation. — Peter Joseph

As opposition leader, [Stephen Harper] wrote in the Montreal Gazette in the year before he came to power: 'Information is the lifeblood of a democracy. Without adequate access to key information about government policies and programs, citizens and parliamentarians cannot make informed decisions and incompetent or corrupt governments can be hidden under a cloak of secrecy.'
When he became prime minister, his attitude appeared to undergo a shift of considerable proportions. It often took the Conservatives twice as long as previous governments to handle access requests. Sometimes it took six months to a year. — Lawrence Martin

Our government has become incompetent, unresponsive, corrupt. And that incompetence, ineptitude, lack of accountability is now dangerous. — Carly Fiorina

Left-wing social policies sicken our behavior and corrupt our culture. People bend principles and sacrifice integrity to get as much as they can from the government. Giveaway programs encourage every imaginable sort of cheating and dishonesty. Wheeling and dealing in food stamps is a way of life. Lying and fraud are commonplace. Whenever you're dependent on the money, the end justifies the means. — James Cook

Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief and noted orator, tried to unite the Indians against the white invasion: The way, and the only way, to check and to stop this evil, is for all the Redmen to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land, as it was at first and should be yet; for it was never divided, but belongs to all for the use of each. That no part has a right to sell, even to each other, much less to strangers - those who want all and will not do with less. Angered when fellow Indians were induced to cede a great tract of land to the United States government, Tecumseh organized in 1811 an Indian gathering of five thousand, on the bank of the Tallapoosa River in Alabama, and told them: Let the white race perish. They seize your land; they corrupt your women, they trample on the ashes of your dead! Back whence they came, upon a trail of blood, they must be driven. — Howard Zinn

It might take an act of God to convince some Americans that parts of their government are corrupt, but at the same time, you cannot, under any circumstances, persuade an Iranian that his government is not corrupt! — Mahbod Seraji

The reality is we that have a corrupt campaign finance system which separates the American people's needs and desires from what Congress is doing. So to my mind, what we have got to do is wage a political revolution where millions of people have given up on the political process, stand up and fight back, demand the government that represents us and not just a handful of campaign contribution - contributors. — Bernie Sanders

Critics become criminals since truth is anathema to an empire or any authoritarian government that depends on lies for its existence. The informant who provides the people with the truth cannot be protected by whistle-blower laws or the Constitution. It is the truth-tellers who are sent to prison or are killed while those who undermine our Constitution are promoted. This lasts until the corrupt government is dismantled. — Ron Paul

In countries where the government and political environment is honest, generally you will find that the people are honest, law abiding and helpful. And the reverse is true too. In a corrupt environment, an honest person has a hard time, whereas in an honest environment, a corrupt person has a tough time. — Shiv Khera

The only reason investors haven't run screaming from an obviously corrupt financial marketplace is because the government has gone to such extraordinary lengths to sell the narrative that the problems of 2008 have been fixed. — Matt Taibbi

John Prescott has made the government look greedy and ridiculous. Labour is seen as the corrupt party. The government has been fulfilling the old rule that oppositions do not win elections, governments lose them. — William Rees-Mogg

There is a long American tradition of suspicion of concentrated economic power because of its tendency to corrupt government and turn it from a democracy into a plutocracy. — Zephyr Teachout

For a government,' said the god, 'is nothing but a mirror of your minds--tyrannical for tyrants--hypocritical for hypocrites --corrupt for those who are indifferent--extravagant and wasteful for the selfish--strong and honorable only toward honest men. — Talbot Mundy

The worship of the state is the worship of force. There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men. The worst evils which mankind ever had to endure were inflicted by governments. — Ludwig Von Mises

I think George Bush is the most corrupt American president since Harding in the Twenties. He is not the legitimate president. This really is a completely unsupportable government and I look forward to it being overthrown as much as I looked forward to Saddam Hussein being overthrown. — Ken Livingstone

Carli Fiorina says companies are consolidating because it's the only way to compete with big, corrupt government. "This is how socialism starts." Is that also why she bought Compaq when she was CEO of Hewlett-Packard? — Kevin Drum

The division into whig and tory is founded in the nature of men; the weakly and nerveless, the rich and the corrupt, seeing more safety and accessibility in a strong executive; the healthy, firm, and virtuous, feeling confidence in their physical and moral resources, and willing to part with only so much power as is necessary for their good government; and, therefore, to retain the rest in the hands of the many, the division will substantially be into Whig and Tory. — Thomas Jefferson