Quotes About Corruption

a country can be too small, too socially knitted, too tightly tied for its own good. Strong social networks can, in certain circumstances, turn to incestuous corruption and the shutting down of democratic discourse. You

Love can corrupt and destroy, distort and betray – this I know from my own bitter experience; but I now also know that, without love, we are nothing.

and hearing only silence, the heart must erupt in agony: "Where is God? Where is God?" And as the years of silence spread, while the ravager despoils at will, would you or I see the corruption of a child and not take arms? Or watch our lifetime's work erupt in flame at the whims of blind men, and not be tempted to reach for a sword?

Two fundamental gifts of God have been corrupted: the light of reason in the West, the fire of authentic spirituality in the East.

We are resisting the technological corruption of our humanity with technology. We're also resisting with our thinking, our perseverance, our friendships....In the end, we will find that even the best of tools can do no more than assist us. Certainly they cannot save us

Richard [Baker] had done his homework. From the beginning, he pointed out, the Buddhist practice of begging was based on an ancient notion of accumulating merit—not unlike the Roman Catholic indulgence scams. By giving food and money to the monks, wealthy patrons essentially accumulated merit badges, which were redeemable in the next life. Richard wondered if the tradition of begging—on the streets or in board rooms—wasn't corrupt. "Don't we want to avoid the idea of merit?

Where war goes on without end, all men are inevitably corrupted by its brutality -- and the worst horrors are visited upon the most innocent.

Saigon remained, the repository and the arena, it breathed history, expelled it like toxin, Shit Piss and Corruption. Paved swamp, hot mushy winds that never cleaned anything away, heavy thermal seal over diesel fuel, mildew, garbage, excrement, atmosphere. A five-block walk in that could take it out of you, you'd get back to the hotel with your head feeling like one of those chocolate apples, tap it sharply in the right spot and it falls apart in sections. ?

The problem with the politicians of both parties in the US is that neither of them have a real agenda except to feather their own nests. They both have their hands deep in corporate pockets. All the rest is sleight of hand and distraction to keep the public occupied with trivia, divided against each other, and thinking their vote matters.

History of the Great American Fortunes uncovered how many family fortunes were taken from the public domain by colonial land grants, bribery and insider dealing – and how such fortunes quickly take a financial form.

Campaign donors buy a get out of jail pass... essentially, fraud has been decriminalized.

greed that preys on human misery (...)

how the Clintons ripped off literally billions of dollars that had been donated to help those left alive after the devastating Haiti earthquake.

There was a rift in American life that was now coursing through American government. It wasn't between Democrats and Republicans. It was between the people who were in it for the mission, and the people who were in it for the money.

Fighting DC is like arresting the street dealer, who is the end point in the drug trade. It's the most visible aspect of the problem, sure, but it doesn't address the source of the spreading contamination.

The former soldiers pledged allegiance to their bank accounts,

I hated what this country had become and wanted nothing more than to hold up a mirror so its citizens could see it for what it truly was, not the Land of Opportunity for which our forefathers fought and died, but as the fascist regime that served to funnel the money upward from those most in need into the pockets of those who would see them all starve in the streets, the same men who took away their livelihoods and stranded them in a city rotting beneath their very feet.

If the law was a temple, it was built on human misery and jails were the cornerstones.

In the event, in Guatemala the US crushed democracy, not communism. Castillo Armas swiftly reversed the agrarian reform, reached agreement with United Fruit, and restored the old order of corrupt dictatorship.

Here you can shoot the bad guys,' a mercenary says in Baghdad. 'In America we give them corporate bonuses.

Although reality can sometimes corrupt the fairy tale and alter our ambitions, some things remain unalterable. From the richest to the poorest, we start and end with family.

Every society gets the criminals it deserves" is her philosophy. "And the police force it's willing to pay for, rather than the one it insists upon.

These two kinds of arguments reverberate through debates about what money should and should not buy. The fairness objection asks about the inequality that market choices may reflect; the corruption objection asks about the attitudes and norms that market relations may damage or dissolve.

It is hard to imagine a more "pay-to-play" relationship than the one between Steyer and his grantees. It epitomizes the cynicism of Washington, D.C. And it exposes the news media's double standard.