Quotes on Corrupt Government

Great men are almost always bad men.

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

Debt is the fatal disease of republics, the first thing and the mightiest to undermine governments and corrupt the people.

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.

When a nation is over-reliant on one or two commodities like oil or precious minerals, corrupt government ministers and their dodgy associates hoard profits and taxes instead of properly allocating them to schools and hospitals.

Government ought to be all outside and no inside. . . . Everybody knows that corruption thrives in secret places, and avoids public places, and we believe it a fair presumption that secrecy means impropriety.

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.