Politics Corruption Quotes & Sayings

Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper. — Martin Luther King Jr.

In this way, the Church was a true reflection of the whole of Russian society. The KGB and the Russian people had penetrated each other to such an extent that they could not be separated. The culture of betrayal and suspicion and distrust that the KGB relied on had become part of the national culture, poisoning politics in the 1990s and beyond: decades of corruption, murder and sordid sex scandals. If it cannot purge itself, however, the Russian nation will never rid itself of the illness that has driven people to alcohol. Russians need to trust each other again. — Oliver Bullough

It's very simple. If the American people care about a lot of things including corruption in government, then, in fact, if you use the power to appoint in order to do political business, to clear fields, to save your party money and so on, if it's not a crime - and I believe it is - it certainly is business as usual, politics of corruption. — Darrell Issa

Any factor that breeds polarization will worsen policy, and thus cause lower growth. — William Easterly

No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious & charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful. — Kurt Vonnegut

Most gun control arguments miss the point. If all control boils fundamentally to force, how can one resist aggression without equal force? How can a truly "free" state exist if the individual citizen is enslaved to the forceful will of individual or organized aggressors? It cannot. — Tiffany Madison

Dear Government ... I'm going to have a serious talk with you if I ever find anyone to talk to. — Stieg Larsson

Overborrowing or overlending? Lenders encourage indebtedness because it is profitable. Developing country governments are sometimes even pressured to overborrow ... Even without corruption, it is easy to be influenced by Western businessmen and financiers ... Countries that aren't sure that borrowing is worth the rist are told how important it is to establis a credit rating: borrow even if you really don't need the money. — Joseph E. Stiglitz

Being a reporter is one of the noblest things you can do in life. Letting the people know. It's really a holy cause. Time after time after time, in the middle of corruption and disgrace and bad politics, I've seen people come through and do for people. I write about someone in trouble and someone else rallies to help them. Through reporting, things can change. — Celestine Sibley

Political leaders are reflection of our society. — Sukant Ratnakar

Deception and privileged secrets are common facets of politics. — Wayne Gerard Trotman

The role of political leadership in any society will remain critical to the socio-economic progression of the world. It is however worrying to see the growing number of people, including the youth, getting into politics for economic gain and not for a cause. This, inter alia, is the contaminated seed and eventual root of chronic corruption because such leadership will always be selfishly seeking gain and enrichment from their roles and offices. — Archibald Marwizi

[I]t kind of terrified me to imagine myself spending the rest of my life tinkering on the margins of the small arguments. — Lawrence Lessig

They said, Now we are capitalists! but all Ulrich could see was criminality to a principle. — Rana Dasgupta

Since politics - until recently - has been a man's world, men, as a whole are responsible for its corruption. — Bertha Knight Landes

Where there's corruption in government, somebody or everybody's making a lot of money. That makes it dangerous. — Kenneth Eade

Solitude is one thing and being alone is another. Solitude can be isolation, an escape, an unwanted thing; but to be alone without the burden of life, with that utter freedom in which time/thought has never been, is to be with the universe. In solitude there is despairing loneliness, a sense of being abandoned, lost, craving for some kind of relationship, like a ship lost at sea. All our daily activity leads to this isolation, with its endless conflicts and miseries, and rare joys thrown in. This isolation is corruption, manifested in politics, in business and of course in organized religions. Corruption exists in the very high places and on the very doorstep. To be tied is corruption; any form of attachment leads to it, whether it be to a belief, faith, ideal, experience, or any conclusion. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Power does not corrupt; it merely elevates the degree in which something is done that has already been pursued. — Felix O. Hartmann

Then, too, the senate has a rule that no point is discussed on the same day it is brought up, but rather it is put off till the next meeting; they do this so that someone who blurts out the first thing that occurs to him will not proceed to think up arguments to defend his position instead of looking for what is of use to the commonwealth, being willing to damage the public welfare rather than his own reputation, ashamed, as it were, in a perverse and wrong-headed way, to admit that his first view was short-sighted. From the start such a person should have taken care to speak with deliberation rather than haste. — Thomas More

All, or the greatest part of men that have aspired to riches or power, have attained thereunto either by force or fraud, and what they have by craft or cruelty gained, to cover the foulness of their fact, they call purchase, as a name more honest. Howsoever, he that for want of will or wit useth not those means, must rest in servitude and poverty. — Walter Raleigh

I'll confess that I don't watch the Olympics, but you'd have to be living under a rock to be unaware of the corruption and the expense. An amorphous organization with no transparency, unclear lines of responsibility, huge amounts of politics and a great deal of unearned power. — Seth Godin

Remember one thing as South Africa prepares to go to the polls this week and the world grapples with the ascendancy of the African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma: South Africa is not Zimbabwe.
In South Africa, no one doubts that Wednesday's elections will be free and fair. While there is an unacceptable degree of government corruption, there is no evidence of the wholesale kleptocracy of Robert Mugabe's elite. While there has been the abuse of the organs of state by the ruling ANC, there is not the state terror of Mugabe's Zanu-PF. And while there is a clear left bias to Zuma's ANC, there is no suggestion of the kind of voluntarist experimentation that has brought Zimbabwe to its knees. — Mark Gevisser

Savers have to be punished so debtors can be saved.

Why? Because if debtors are rescued, that makes it possible for more debts to be issued in the future.

And why is that important? Because the banking system needs ever more loans in order to survive. — Chris Martenson

Why is it that we are happy to see change of system happening in movies but, when it comes to real life, we are afraid of it. Are we a Box Office Democracy? — Sukant Ratnakar

When I retired and told my wife I wanted to go back to Bozeman and fight political corruption and get involved in politics, she decided to stay in Seattle. — Stan Jones

Fascism is when corporations become the government. — Bill Maher

Corporate greed controls political will. — Aaron B. Powell

I make love like a snake disguised as an elephant and a donkey. But I mustn't talk about sexual congress and Congress simultaneously. — Dark Jar Tin Zoo

Heaven doesn't only teach humans about virtue and divinity.
It also shows us about politics and corruption; and that's a fact. — Toba Beta

Transparency means to dedicate our thoughts and efforts to non privacy rules and not to defend negative intelligence ideas or surveillance programs. — Auliq Ice

The root of corruption is lack of contentment. — Lailah Gifty Akita

May be the power lies in the hands of the one who holds the gun ... so he just presses the trigger whenever the slightest streak of anger passes his mind ... and after a few haunting days he roams freely in the country without fear ..
and what about the one who faces the wrath and bears the bullets?
He leaves a movement behind ... but haven't such movements always been ephemeral?
Is death the price you need to pay to open the eyes of those who care but just for a couple of days? — Sanhita Baruah

Is it possible that
we 'hate' politics because we have forgotten its specifi c and limited
nature, its overwhelming value, and also its innate fragility? Could it be
that our expectations are so high that politics appears almost destined
to disappoint? Democratic politics cannot make 'every sad heart glad',
as Crick argued, nor did it ever promise to do so. But not always
getting what you want, an awareness that public governance is often
slow and bureaucratic, a frustration that some decisions are hard to
understand or have to be made in secret, disbelief and anger at the selfinterested
behaviour of a small number of politicians, and an acceptance
that some people will always take out more from the system than
they put in - these are the prices you pay for living in a democracy. — Matthew Flinders

To say that corrupt means corrupt the ends is to believe in the immaculate conception of ends and principles. The real arena is corrupt and bloody. Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father in the politics of when to go to bed; he who fears corruption fears life. — Saul D. Alinsky

Is ours a government of the people, by the people, for the people, or a kakistocracy rather, for the benefit of knaves at the cost of fools? — Thomas Love Peacock

On election days, the burdens of poverty and corruption and of a creaky economic system are put aside, and India celebrates. Many voters dress especially for the occasion ... None quite voice the thought, but those who came in a steady stream to vote seemed to be saying that India may have fallen far behind its neighbors in the struggle for prosperity, but as long as it can choose its governments, it can hope for better in the future. — Shashi Tharoor

The common and continual mischief's [sic] of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and the duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passion. — George Washington

The public is lied to every day by the President, by his spokespeople, by his officers. If you can't handle the thought that the President lies to the public for all kinds of reasons, you couldn't stay in the government at that level, or you're made aware of it, a week. ... The fact is Presidents rarely say the whole truth - essentially, never say the whole truth - of what they expect and what they're doing and what they believe and why they're doing it and rarely refrain from lying, actually, about these matters. — Daniel Ellsberg

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

Oh, I take your meaning now, Marcus," he said, as if comprehension had just dawned. "You would have me harken back to a time when the outcome of a contest was not known until after the voting. How nostalgic. — Andrew Levkoff

To centralize power in the name of freedom is akin to putting a crime syndicate in charge of rooting out corruption. It is the normal state of politics that the more centralized it is, the more damage it does. Fast-track authority [for government-to-government trade agreements] centralizes power and is therefore part of the problem. — Llewellyn Rockwell

Our country must morally re-arm. We cannot run a country where virtue is vice and vice is virtue. We cannot live in a country where the looters of yester-years assume they have undergone a Pauline conversion because they are in opposition and oppose the Government of the day. Some of our richest men and women are to be found in politics and their creed is, thou shall reap what thou hath not sown. — Patrick L.O. Lumumba

The whole point about corruption in politics is that it can't be done, or done properly, without a bipartisan consensus. — Christopher Hitchens

What fueled this hatred? Society. — Shannon A. Thompson

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth cannot be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society - the farmers, mechanics, and laborers - who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government. — Andrew Jackson

Government corruption made it possible to obtain authentic passports and visas, which were much more reliable than fake ones. — Kenneth Eade

The Tea Party represents stakeholders in the American system; people who were never involved in politics or thought they had to be, yet realized that political corruption and incompetence threatened not only their families, but the future of the nation itself. — Tammy Bruce

From experience I can say that we can make our nation corruption free. Only promises won't help ... Irade Nek Hone Chahiye. — Narendra Modi

With the birth of the Internet, Clinton's critics began chronicling his
scandals - which were entirely ignored by the reliable mainstream press -
and even came up with a colorful term to describe the untidy truth that an
inordinate number of those connected to Bill or his wife, Hilary Rodham
Clinton, had met unnatural deaths - the Clinton Body Count. — Donald Jeffries

Congress Mukt Bharat BJP ka naara nahi hai, jan jan ka sankalp hai. Be it dynasty politics, nepotism, corruption, communalism, divisions in society or poverty, getting freedom from all this is what I mean by a Congress Mukt Bharat. — Narendra Modi

What do you mean by sound government?'
Good public order, no corruption in high places, freedom from fear and war and crime, a reasonably equitable distribution of wealth and resources, concern for the individual life.'
Then we haven't got sound government. — P.D. James

Indeed, bribery, favoritism, and corruption in a great variety of forms were rampant not only in politics, but in all levels of society. — David McCullough

scientifically speaking - you cannot. Accept it. You simply cannot make any nation completely corruption-free. It is only an absurd fairytale. It feels good to talk about it, but it cannot be made a reality. — Abhijit Naskar

Yes, we have to seek redemption! Redemption from the divisive politics based on caste and religion, redemption from the corruption which is eating our lives like termites, redemption from misery of poverty, redemption from the sins of our venal politicians. We need good governance and accountability. An individual has to fight for the things he rightfully deserves. People do not need crutches of any kind if the basic conditions of nation are conducive to their growth. It's ridiculous; people are first deprived of basic amenities, denied their dues and then offered carrots to benefit the vote bank politics. — Madhu Vajpayee

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

The tendency of the UN and its major supporters is to think good intentions and mild to rampant corruption are as good as actual results. — John Hamill

If the USA doesn't start learning how to put personal egos aside for the sustainability of a nation, then these "mighty" United States will be no better than the politically divided commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Where progress is slowed because each party thinks any idea from the other party must be stupid or without validity and Independence has become a distant dream squashed by corruption. I suggest politicians go back to kindergarten to learn the basics in decent humanity. The notions of sharing and respect obviously didn't stick the first time. — Cristina Marrero

Somebody had said how only 15 paisa of the one rupee sent from the Centre reached the intended beneficiaries. The job of a leader isn't just to diagnose the disease but to treat it — Narendra Modi

Forcible intercourse with one individual is called as "Rape" & Raping thousands of individuals at a time is called as "Politics". — Srinivas Shenoy

True understanding involves sincere honesty and holistic, deep listening without the political corruption of evil power players. ~ Angelica Hopes, an excerpt from my book K.H. trilogy — Angelica Hopes

In North America, people get a sense that something is really wrong in government and in our culture. There is a corruption, not only in politics, but of spirit as well, when people are so quick to be violent with one another. I think everybody would like to be able to find a solution to make things better. We have the desire to reform inside of us, and we get frustrated because we don't know how to change things, even if it comes to our own behavior. Sometimes you get frustrated because you don't know how to stop that thing that you know is either hurtful to yourself or someone else. — Jennifer Beals

No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power. — Jacob Bronowski

Imagine all contradictions, all possible incompatibilities
you will find them in the government, in the law-courts, in the churches, in the public shows of this droll nation. — Voltaire

Remember what your grandfather said about the earth's being round at school and flat at home. He was a wise man and taught you what you need to know in Burma. It is the same in politics. Learn the arguments for socialism in the textbooks parrot them pass your exams. Never never argue. But keep within your own head and heart what you and everyone really knows that in the real world it is a system of incompetence and corruption and a project for ruining the country. — Pascal Khoo Thwe

The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. This wasn't for any religious reasons. They couldn't find three wise men and a virgin. — Jay Leno

Almost everyone in politics nowadays has at least one conflict of interest. — Kenneth Eade

As long as politics is the shadow of big business, the attenuation of the shadow will not change the substance. — John Dewey

Through the 1990s, the fracturing of Tasmanian Aboriginal politics was given impetus by the ongoing corruption of a number of black organisations started under federal government programmes, with large amounts of public money being lost. — Richard Flanagan

Poverty is a human-engineered product per excellence. It results primarily from inequitable distribution of national revenues coupled with escalating levels of corruption and mismanagement of national resources. — Moutasem Algharati

They are the typical product of the structure of the German Lager: if one offers a position of privilege to a few individuals in a state of slavery, exacting in exchange the betrayal of a natural solidarity with their
comrades, there will certainly be someone who will accept. He will be withdrawn from the common law and will become untouchable; the more power that he is given, the more he will be consequently hateful and
hated. When he is given the command of a group of unfortunates, with the right of life or death over them, he will be cruel and tyrannical, because he will understand that if he is not sufficiently so, someone else, judged more suitable, will take over his post.
Moreover, his capacity for hatred, unfulfilled in the direction of the oppressors, will double back, beyond all reason, on the oppressed; and he will only be satisfied when he has unloaded onto his underlings the injury received from above. — Primo Levi

politics?" "A necessary evil that on rare occasions works without corruption, abuse, and waste. — J.D. Robb

Have you ever found yourself saying, "There ought to be a law against this," or, "Somebody should do something"? Well, here's the good news - you can be the one to do something. You can be the one to make the law. — Victoria Stoklasa MA

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

As every slumdweller knew, there were three main ways out of poverty: finding an entrepreneurial niche, as the Husains had found in garbage; politics and corruption, in which Asha placed her hopes; and education. — Katherine Boo

Like Beji, our country is a nation whose citizens has employed crooked means of survival, lives in the expense of others, cares the least about their compatriots, and are ever more than willing to do anything conceivable to plunge every vulnerable life into a pitch-dark abyss! It is, you will realize, a lovely den of hungry wolves whose ugly claws often extend a cold handshake to every beggar in the next turn... — Levi Cheruo Cheptora

You would be surprised at how many corporations "none of your business" applies to! — Steven Magee

Political corruption, social greed, and Americanized quasi-socialism can ruin even the most wonderful places. California proved that. — Tiffany Madison

Corruption free" will truly be in a future impossible tense because many people re-elect unscrupulous politicians!
In the end because of blind immunity to reality and impunity of "justified" corruptions in the government, it is always the hard working, suffering, struggling, less privileged citizens who are all the sacrificial lamb in times of disaster and calamities through their well catered embezzlement system. — Angelica Hopes

You don't say 'they all do it' unless you know you've been doing it too. — Christopher Hitchens

Frequent mobs, seditions, and at last civil wars, became common, while a few leading men on whom the masses were dependent, affected supreme power under the seemly pretence of seeking the good of senate and people; citizens were judged good or bad, without reference to their loyalty to the republic (for all were equally corrupt); but the wealthy and dangerously powerful were esteemed good citizens, because they maintained the existing state of things. — Sallust

Are there good governments and bad governments? No, there are only bad governments and worse governments. — Charles Bukowski

Politics, it's all corrupt! — Steven Magee

I never aspired to be the PM ... Why should I quit over a silly issue like corruption? - Devender Singh — Tuhin A. Sinha

The major international appeal for 'House of Cards' was kind of a surprise because it's a very American show. What we learned is that American politics is very American, but greed and corruption and all of that is very global. — Ted Sarandos

As well as a shared mentality, the Establishment is cemented by financial links and a 'revolving door' culture: that is, powerful individuals gliding between the political, corporate and media worlds - or who manage to inhabit these various worlds at the same time. The terms of political debate are in large part dictated by a media controlled by a small number of exceptionally rich owners, while think tanks and political parties are funded by wealthy individuals and corporate interests. — Owen Jones

Start with putting three of your friends to jail. You definitely know what for, and people will believe you — Lee Kuan Yew

New Zealand has the cheapest government money can buy. — Grant McLachlan

A DEAD STATESMAN
I could not dig: I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?
from EPITAPHS OF THE WAR 1914-18 — Rudyard Kipling

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

Corruption in education leads to some people getting highly educated and then these people support the uneducated to rule over the illiterate masses. — Amit Abraham

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

It will be interesting to see if they accept the idea that not only actual corruption in politics needs to be addressed, but the appearance of corruption as well, ensuring public confidence and all that. — Larry Noble

A less well known impact of immigrant populations is the increase that destination states gain in Congress where apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives is calculated on the basis of a state's entire adult population regardless of legal status. And, because each state's electoral college vote is the sum of the number of its representatives in the House and its two senators, high immigration states play a larger role in presidential elections than they might if only adult citizens and legal aliens were counted in population surveys. — Edward S. Greenberg

The Communist Party apparatus was the most gigantic mafia the world has ever known. — David Remnick

I never favored any political party. Being a conservative or a liberal, a Republican or a Democrat, these are just labels that people use to categorize each other so that they can quickly decide whether or not they want to listen to what they have to say. Politicians are not interested in empathizing with each other. They simply try to do as little as possible in the way of serving the public while building their reputation among their peers, amassing power and wealth that is unimaginable to the common American citizen that they supposedly represent. — Aaron B. Powell

The American people, and the citizens of all Western nations, have the right to know about every single thing their representatives do on their behalf. After all, elected officials are merely representing those who hold the true power (the people). — James Morcan

The Second Amendment is timeless for our Founders grasped that self-defense is three-fold: every free individual must protect themselves against the evil will of the man, the mob and the state. — Tiffany Madison

All intellectual tendencies are corrupted when they consort with power. — Clive James

The capital of the United States is the home to the best of the worst humanity has to offer. The most corrupt, the most deceitful, the most tyrannical, the most greedy, and the most evil rise through the ranks of the political machines and eventually find themselves safely in bed participating in the incestuous orgy of corruption occurring daily in Washington, DC. — Justin King

Corrupt judicial practices in Russia, America, China, Great Britain, and other countries only vary by a single degree: the cost of services. — Christopher Mart