#bribe

What did “good government” really mean? Langlie and his brotherhood promised an end to political corruption. (There’s no evidence that Langlie ever even took a drink, much less a bribe.) The days of “honest graft” were over, at least for a while. But seen from another perspective—that of ordinary citizens without access to Langlie and Abram’s elite network—Langlie didn’t so much end corruption as legalize it. Langlie wasn’t opposed to a government organized around the interests of the greedy; he just didn’t want to have to break the law to serve them. ↗

— Jeff Sharlet

#bribery #government #legality #political-corruption #united-states

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

— Alexis de Tocqueville

#american republic #bribe #congress #day #discovers

It is to be remedied that the false traitors will suffer no man to come into the king's presence for no cause without bribes where none ought to be had. Any man might have his coming to him to ask him grace or judgment in such case as the king may give. ↗

— Jack Cade

#ask #bribes #case #cause #come

They say that it were great reproof to the king to take again what he has given, so that they will not suffer him to have his own good, nor land, nor forfeiture, nor any other good but they ask it from him, or else they take bribes of others to get it for him. ↗

— Jack Cade

#any #ask #bribes #else #forfeiture

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

— Edward Coke

#fault #great #small #though #yet

There are many hands touching ballots after a voter drops his ballot into the ballot box. There is no guarantee of ballot secrecy for anyone, which makes the whole system vulnerable to intimidation and bribery. ↗

— Bob Schaffer

#anyone #ballot #ballot box #ballots #box

There is nothing that would upset me more than my dad being bribed by the press. It's like, 'Just let them run it, then. Don't you give them ammunition.' ↗

— Adele

#being #bribed #dad #give #just

Who can wonder at the attractiveness... of the bar, for our ambitious young men, when the highest bribes of society are at the feet of the successful orator? ↗

— Marsilio Ficino

#attractiveness #bar #bribes #feet #highest

I went to my dad when I was 17 and said, 'I want to be a country music star.' Which every dad loves to hear. And he said, 'I want you to go to college.' So we had a discussion. And I'm pretty stubborn. I'm a lot like him. And he said, 'If you go to college and graduate, I'll pay your first six months of rent in Nashville.' So he bribed me. ↗

— Eric Church

#college #country #country music #dad #discussion

But there will be no justice, there will be no government of the people, by the people, and for the people, as long as the government and its officials permit bribery in any form. ↗

— John Jay Hooker

#bribery #by the people #for the people #form #government