Bribe Quotes

• Never underestimate the effectiveness of a straight cash bribe.

  Claud Cockburn

  Effectiveness, Cash, Underestimate

  18 Copy quote

• Though the bribe be small, yet the fault is great.

  Edward Coke

  Faults, Bribery

  Sir Edward Coke (1797). “Institutes of the laws of England: containg the exposition of many ancient and other statutes ...”, p.147

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.

  George Washington

  Inspirational, Leadership, Honesty

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1834). “The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts”, p.324

  37 Copy quote

  Show source

• Marriage is a bribe to make a housekeeper think she's a householder.

  Thornton Wilder

  Funny, Marriage, Thinking

  Merchant of Yonkers (1939) act 1

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our supple tribes repress their patriot throats, And ask no questions but the price of votes.

  Samuel Johnson

  Tribes, Vote, Patriot

  Oliver Goldsmith, Tobias Smollett, Samuel Johnson, William Shenstone (1861). “Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith, Tobias Smollett, Samuel Johnson and William Shenstone”

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• The core of the concept of a bribe is an inducement improperly influencing the performance of a public function meant to be gratuitously exercised.

  Peggy Noonan

  Influence, Function, Performances

  4 Copy quote

• I have often noticed that a bribe has that effect - it changes a relation. The man who offers a bribe gives away a little of his own importance; the bribe once accepted, he becomes the inferior, like a man who has paid for a woman.

  Graham Greene

  Men, Giving, Literature

  Graham Greene (1966). “The Comedians”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Successful ... politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies.

  Walter Lippmann

  Insecure, Successful, Men

  1955 The Public Philosophy, ch.2, sect.4.

  41 Copy quote

  Show source

• You cannot hope to bribe or twist, thank God! The British journalist.
  But seeing what the man will do unbribed, there's no occasion to!

  Humbert Wolfe

  Funny, Men, America

  The Uncelestial City (1930)

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• No mortal thing can bear so high a price, But that with mortal thing it may be bought.

  Walter Raleigh

  Bears, May, Bribery

  Sir Walter Raleigh, Thomas Birch, William Oldys (1829). “Miscellaneous works”, p.715

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• The best thing you can do for the poor is not to be one of them.

  Reverend Ike

  Helpful, Poor, Ministers

  "The golden gospel of Reverend Ike" by Clayton Riley, www.nytimes.com. March 9, 1975.

  116 Copy quote

  Show source

• A man to whom you do a favor will not understand if you say nothing, make no noise, just walk away. You may cause more trouble by refusing a bribe than by accepting it.

  Chinua Achebe

  Men, Favors, May

  Chinua Achebe (2011). “No Longer at Ease”, p.90, Anchor

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Alas! the small discredit of a bribe Scarce hurts the lawyer, but undoes the scribe.

  Alexander Pope

  Hurt, Lawyer, Scribes

  Alexander Pope, Alexander Dyce (1835). “The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope: Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, being the prologue to the satires. Satires, epistles, and odes of Horace imitated. Epitaphs. The Dunciad, in four books”, p.111

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• The whole point of the system is to bribe you with the leftovers of what they have stolen from you in the first place.

  Stefan Molyneux

  Leftovers, Firsts, Stolen

  56 Copy quote

• All those men have their price.

  Robert Walpole

  Men, Political, Politics

  Quoted in William Coxe Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole (1798).

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.

  Alexander Pope

  Judging, Gold, And Love

  Alexander Pope, John Wilson Croker (1871). “The Works: Including Several Hundred Unpublished Letters, and Other New Materials”, p.442

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's rather naive, apart from being ethically objectionable, to assume that our investigators travel around the country with bags of money trying to bribe witnesses to lie on the witness stand. We just don't operate that way.

  Jim Garrison

  Country, Travel, Lying

  9 Copy quote

• What, shall one of us, That struck for the foremost man of all this world But for supporting robbers--shall we now Contaminate our fingers with base bribes, And sell the mighty space of our large honors For so much trash as may be grasped thus?

  William Shakespeare

  Men, Space, Honor

  William Shakespeare, Thomas Bowdler (1849). “The Family Shakespeare: In One Volume, in which Nothing is Added to the Original Text, But Those Words and Expressions are Omitted which Cannot with Propriety be Read Aloud in a Family”, p.694

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Tis pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures; And all are to be sold, if you consider Their passions, and are dext'rous; some by features Are brought up, others by a warlike leader; Some by a place--as tend their years or natures; The most by ready cash--but all have prices, From crowns to kicks, according to their vices.

  Lord Byron

  Passion, Years, Leader

  11 Copy quote

• During my 21 years of playing cricket, I have never been approached by anyone or offered a bribe.

  Imran Khan

  Sports, Years, Cricket

  18 Copy quote

• The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Government, Discovery, America

  214 Copy quote

• Nevertheless, this one fact should be apparent: turning the other cheek is a bribe. It is a valid form of action for only so long as the Christian is impotent politically or militarily.

  Gary North

  Christian, Long, Facts

  7 Copy quote

• Love has its own time, its own season, and its own reasons from coming and going. You cannot bribe it or coerce it or reason it into staying. You can only embrace it when it arrives and give it away when it comes to you.

  Kent Nerburn

  Love, Wise, Wisdom

  Kent Nerburn (2014). “Letters to My Son: A Father's Wisdom on Manhood, Life, and Love”, p.169, New World Library

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• The best thing you can do for the planet is to stay home.

  Gary Snyder

  Home, Planets, Best Things

  19 Copy quote

• It is essential to seek out enemy agents who have come to conduct espionage against you and to bribe them to serve you. Give them instructions and care for them. Thus doubled agents are recruited and used.

  Sun Tzu

  War, Following Instructions, Giving

  "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu, translated by Chow-Hou Wee, (Chapter XIII), 2003.

  34 Copy quote

  Show source