Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.
Interpretation
Corruption often arises in free societies, indicating a failure to uphold constitutional values.
Edward Gibbon's quote suggests that corruption is a definitive signal of the presence of constitutional liberty. In societies where there is freedom, the potential for corruption exists due to the absence of stringent controls, and this corruption reflects the imperfections in the adherence to constitutional principles and ethics.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of maintaining integrity in public office, one might say, 'As Edward Gibbon stated, corruption is the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.'
It was Rome, on the fifteenth of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.
I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind, by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that whatsoever might be the future date of my History, the life of the historian must be short and precarious.
And the winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
The first and indispensable requisite of happiness is a clear conscience.
In discussing Barbarism and Christianity I have actually been discussing the Fall of Rome.
Many a sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God than that God is a cruel and capricious tyrant.
I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.
Much of political decision-making concentrates power in the hands of those already inside the circle, who tend to be men. Excluding women may not be the intention, but when they are not invited into the room where decisions are made, you can see how it happens.
There is a tendency in all parties, when they have been for a long time in possession of power, to augment it.
No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!
I am a freeman, an American, a United States Senator, and a Democrat, in that order.
I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress.
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