Quotes & Sayings About Moral Corruption

The word corruption does not arouse the moral revulsion that it should. We think of it as more a nuisance than a great evil. But corruption kills societies every bit as much as murder kills an individual. Moreover there is no hope for any society in which corruption is endemic. One final thought: Here in Cameroon, as elsewhere in Africa, the knowledgeable guides who lead tours of the slave centers note that Africans were deeply involved in the slave trade, and that without them, the slave trade could not have existed. If only this fact were taught as readily in American universities as it is here in Africa - not in order to minimize white complicity, but because universities should teach truth. Flawed human nature has no color. — Dennis Prager

It is unnatural that a pure stream should flow from a foul fountain its vices are but a continuation of the vices of its origin. A man of moral honor and good political principles, cannot submit to the mean drudgery and disgraceful arts, by which such elections are carried. To be a successful candidate, he must be destitute of the qualities that constitute a just legislator: and being thus disciplined to corruption it is not to be expected that the representative should be better than the man. — Thomas Paine

Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible. — Janice Rogers Brown

The Western rhetoric of appeasement creates a self-reinforcing loop of mental and moral corruption. Speaking the truth now would mean confessing to many months of lies — Garry Kasparov

It is a well-known fact that very often, putting the period of boyhood out of the argument, the older we grow the more cynical and hardened we become; indeed, many of us are only saved by timely death from moral petrification, if not from moral corruption. — H. Rider Haggard

Moral cowardice and intellectual corruption are the natural concomitants of unchallenged privilege. — Noam Chomsky

Am I corrupted if I believe that the people who think alike are more admirable and estimable than those who think for themselves? If no one thought differently, then where would our innovations come from? How would we ever advance beyond the status quo? Corruption isn't just moral or ethical in nature
rust is a form of corruption, one that eats away at its host like a parasite, constantly making it less than it was the day before. The belief that they should hold in greater esteem those who think alike is a form of rust, something that doesn't allow our young people to grow beyond the limitations already established by those who do think alike. — Tom Walsh

There was corruption at every turn, and those who stood for honesty and integrity were more and more vulnerable, more and more isolated amongst the hordes of people who simply had no moral sense. And — Alexander McCall Smith

If you saved yourself, you might also save those around you, those you loved. And since you would do anything in the world to save those you loved, you did anything in the world to save yourself. And because there was no choice, equally there was no possibility of avoiding moral corruption. - — Julian Barnes

Power cannot be maintained and effectively exercised without a moral structure accepted and practiced by all because power attracts the corruptible and because corruption destroys consensus. — L.E. Modesitt Jr.

The lawyers' contribution to the civilizing of humanity is evidenced in the capacity of lawyers to argue furiously in the courtroom, then sit down as friends over a drink or dinner. This habit is often interpreted by the layman as a mark of their ultimate corruption. In my opinion, it is their greatest moral achievement: It is a characteristic of humane tolerance that is most desperately needed at the present time. — John Silber

They are all very serious people with stern expressions on their faces. They discuss nothing but important matters and like to philosophize a great deal, while at the same time everyone can see that the workers are detestably fed, sleep without suitable bedding, thirty to forty in a room with bedbugs everywhere, the stench, the dampness, and the moral corruption ... Obviously all our fine talk has gone on simply to hoodwink ourselves and other people as well. Show me the day nurseries that they're talking about so much about. And where are the libraries? Why, they just write about nurseries and libraries in novels, while in fact not a single one even exists. What does exist is nothing but dirt, vulgarity, and a barbarian way of life ... I dislike these terribly serious faces, they frighten me, and I'm afraid of serious conversations, too. We'd be better off if we all would just shut up for a while! — Anton Chekhov

When a scientist splits an atom, the event is locked away like a jewel in a castle, funneling down to the public through a myriad of institutions. But when an artist stumbles upon the key to unleashing universal evil, the forbidden fruit of his painstaking labor is packaged and sold at every corner store from Bangor to Bangkok. I'm still unsure whether this is the result of a lack of respect for artists (compared to scientists) or the moral corruption of artists (compared to scientists). — Anthony Marais

I believe the only thing that will correct our downward trajectory is the rekindling of the enthusiasm for individual freedom and the reestablishment of the U.S. Constitution as the dominant document of governance. Unless the majority of Americans awaken from their complacency and recognize the threat to their fundamental individual liberties imposed by continued expansion of the federal government, nothing will save us from the fate of all pinnacle nations that have preceded us, those that tolerated political and moral corruption while ignoring fiscal irresponsibility. — Ben Carson

Then, as they began to decline, they all experienced some peculiar similarities: an inordinate emphasis on sports and entertainment, a fixation with lifestyles of the rich and famous, political corruption, and the loss of a moral compass. — Ben Carson

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

Man's want of original righteousness and of holy affections toward God, and the corruption of his moral nature and his bias toward evil is called depravity — Henry Clarence Thiessen

Perverted quality; Moral perversion; The innate corruption of human nature due to original sin; Both the elect and the non-elect came into the world in a state of total d. and alienation from God, and can, of themselves do nothing but sin. J.H. Blunt. — Arundhati Roy

Government Picking Winners and Losers = Corruption. When government tries to pick winners and losers, the inevitable consequence is corruption. Yes, corruption. If not in a legal sense, certainly in a moral sense — Gary Johnson

Yes, this is the logic of the Nation. And it
will never heed the voice of truth and goodness.
It will go on in its ring-dance of moral corruption,
linking steel unto steel, and machine unto
machine; trampling under its tread all the sweet
flowers of simple faith and the living ideals of
man. — Rabindranath Tagore

The corruption of freedom is in proportion to the moral deterioration of the people. For a people who have lost their sense of self-respect have no need for freedom. And the income tax, by transferring the property of earners to the State, has disintegrated the moral fiber of Americans to such a degree that they do not even recognize the fact. — Frank Chodorov

Corruption is a cancer that steals from the poor, eats away at governance and moral fibre and destroys trust. — Robert Zoellick

We will never know the extent of the damage movies are doing to us, but movie art, it appears, thrives on moral chaos. When the country is paralyzed, the popular culture may tell us why. After innocence, winners become losers. Movies are probably inuring us to corruption; the sellout is the hero-survivor for our times. — Pauline Kael

What was happening to him? - he wondered. The impossible conflict of feeling reluctance to do that which was right - wasn't it the basic formula of moral corruption? To recognize one's guilt, yet feel nothing but the coldest, most profound indifference. — Ayn Rand

Lying and corruption begins to seep into the emotional zeitgeist of the entire country. If individual and institutional "leaders" are not exposed, confronted, and prosecuted or ousted for their misdeeds, the inevitable result of all this bureaucratic, corporate, and government corruption will be full-scale cultural suicide in the form of mass amorality - behavior without any moral guidelines - which can generate social chaos in a historically moral country, which can next generate restoration of "order" by way of martial law, which can then generate full dictatorship. More: — Alexandra York

Since Deacon Hollingshead's arrival in town last July the Dominion had been hard at work, cleansing New York City of moral corruption. "Corruption" is a popular word with the enthusiasts of the Dominion, usually uttered as a prelude to the knife, the docket, or the noose. — Robert Charles Wilson

A group of politicians deciding to dump a President because his morals are bad is like the Mafia getting together to bump off the Godfather for not going to church on Sunday. — Russell Baker

To reverence the impersonal creation instead of the personal God who created us is a perversion designed for escaping moral accountability to the Creator. God indicts those who worship the creation instead of its Creator (Rom 1:18-23); and warns of the corruption of morals and behavior which results. — Dave Hunt

This devotion, so great and so confident, to the august Queen of Heaven, has never forth with such brilliancy as when the militant Church of Go has seemed to be endangered by the violence of heresy spread abroad, or by an intolerable moral corruption, or by the attacks of powerful enemies. Ancient and modern history and the more sacred annals of the Church bears witness to public and private supplications addressed to the Mother of God, to help She has granted in return, and to the peace and tranquillity which She has obtained from God. — Pope Leo X

It is a moral achievement on the part of the doctor who ought not to let himself be repelled by sickness and corruption. — Carl Jung

State censorship presents itself as a bulwark between society and forces of subversion or moral corruption. To dismiss this account of its own motives by the state as insincere would be a mistake: it is a feature of the paranoid logic of the censoring mentality that virtue ... must be innocent, and therefore, unless protected, vulnerable to the wiles of vice. — J.M. Coetzee

I'm pushing for citizen equality not because of some moral idea, but because this is the essential way to crack the corruption that now makes it so Washington can't work. — Lawrence Lessig

The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean. I know this by my own experience, & to this day I cherish an unappeased bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever draw a clean sweet breath again on this side of the grave. — Mark Twain

The conference also has a moral duty to examine the corruption of science that can be caused by massive amounts of money. The United States has disbursed tens of billions of dollars to climate scientists who would not have received those funds had their research shown climate change to be beneficial or even modest in its effects. Are these scientists being tempted by money? And are the very, very few climate scientists whose research is supported by industry somehow less virtuous? — Patrick Michaels

When people treat corruption as a routine part of the process, you have something far worse than wrongdoing or moral failing. You have a political cancer that breeds cynicism about democratic government and infects all of society. — Edward Brooke

The effect of corruption I find most underacknowledged is a contraction not of economic possibility but of our moral universe. — Katherine Boo

The downfall of every civilization comes, not from the moral corruption of the common man, but rather from the moral complacency of common men in high places. — E. Digby Baltzell

The disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments. — Adam Smith

Corruption and envy and lust for power. Cruelty and coldness. A vicious probing curiousity. Pure, poisonous, toxic malice. You have never from your earliest years shown a shred of compassion for sympathy or kindness without calculating how it would return to your advantage. You have tortured and killed without regret or hesitation; you have betrayed and intrigued and gloried in your treachery. You are a cess-pit of moral filth. — Philip Pullman

I believe we have a deficit of moral courage in the United States Congress. We have many learned individuals who know what is right but have not the courage to stand against the moral corruption that is now attempting to undermine our republic. — Tom A. Coburn

My work about corruption is to get people to see it less as a moral issue (right/wrong) and more as an economic issue (economies of influence and their effect). — Lawrence Lessig