"Corrupt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... put away from him forever; she must never call him husband more. That was a certain thing. But yet—and a kindly gleam came into his face for the moment—even though guilty, she might not be thoroughly and utterly corrupt. If he could, at least, believe that she had been sorely tempted—if he could only, for the sake of past memories, learn to pity her, rather than to hate! And this became now the tenor of his thoughts. In his deep reflection ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... You entreat in vain, my orders are most strict. Rolla. Look on this massive wedge of gold! look on these precious gems! In thy land they will be wealth for thee and thine, beyond thy hope or wish. Take them; they are thine; let me but pass one moment with Alonzo. Sentinel. Away! Wouldest thou corrupt me?—me, an old Castilian! I know my duty better. Rolla. Soldier, hast thou a wife? Sentinel. I have. Rolla. Hast thou children? Sentinel. Four honest, lovely boys. Rolla. Where didst thou leave ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... at the present day, a standard publication with modern ballad-printers, but their copies are exceedingly corrupt. Many versions and paraphrases of the song exist. Several are referred to in Notes and Queries, and, amongst them, a broadside of the date of 1670, and another dated 1672 (both printed before Erskine was born), presenting different readings of the First Part, ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... had come to Rome on an embassy from their native city; and hence the inflexible determination with which Cato procured their dismissal, through fear, as Plutarch tells us,[135] lest their arts of disputation should corrupt the Roman youth. And when at length, by the authority of Scipio,[136] the literary treasures of Sylla, and the patronage of Lucullus, philosophical studies had gradually received the countenance of the higher classes of their countrymen, still, in consistency with the principle ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... newspaper correspondent had not come into play in these earlier years of the war, and, as a consequence, the thousands who poured down to the Army of the Potomac beheld the city with something of the incredulous scorn with which the effeminate Byzantines regarded the capital of the Goths, when the corrupt descendant of Constantine made the savage Dacians his allies, rather than fight them. Patriotism, however, not pride, marked the common mold of the men of the civil war. It may have been that many an honest plowman, marching through the muddy quagmires of Pennsylvania Avenue, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... with moments of mitigation, over many of the thirteen years of the connection. Of all the measures that Mr. Gladstone was destined in days to come to place upon the statute book, none was more salutary than the law that purified corrupt practices at elections.[54] ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... May, Mr. Grey called the attention of the house to certain abuses and corrupt practices in the post-office, which, he said, had come to his knowledge, in consequence of the dismissal of his noble relative, the Earl of Tankerville, from the office of joint-postmaster-general. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... suppose the dwarf to represent the corrupt part of human nature,—that "law in our members which wars against the law of our minds,"—the ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... fellow-citizens. Or, if any of you are not yet acquainted with this worthy man, I will show him to you, for I know him well. He is my foe, yet I can sincerely recommend him to many of you. If any one has a very bad, shamefully corrupt cause to bring before the courts, I most earnestly counsel him to apply to the buttercup man perched on yonder fountain. He will thank me for it. Believe me, Didymus's cause is just, precisely because this advocate so eagerly ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... detection and punishment of some of the parties whose conduct was complained of." The broad result appears to have been that the guilty for the most part escaped punishment, unless, indeed, some of them lost their positions, of which no certain information exists; but the corrupt combination was broken up, and measures were adopted to prevent the recurrence of the same iniquities. Upon Nelson himself the effect was twofold. His energy and intelligence could not fail to impress the powerful men with whom he was in this way brought into ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... sick of reading about more or less immoral monarchs, and more or less corrupt politicians, and it may be suspected that most of us have had our bellyful of wars now that the recent contest has come to an end. What one really wants to learn from history is how the ordinary folk, like ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... of the game is not in the least injured by the poison, nor does it appear to corrupt sooner than that killed by the gun or knife. The body of this fowl was kept for sixteen hours in a climate damp and rainy, and within seven degrees of the equator, at the end of which time it had contracted no bad smell whatever and there were no symptoms of putrefaction, saving that just round ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... on the circle of the surrounding darkness. Such anguish under such circumstances on the part of such a man could mean but one thing—remorse; and remorse in the breast of one so proverbially careless and corrupt, over the death of a woman who was neither relative nor friend, could have but one ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... which he demonstrated that the welfare of the borough, and the safety of the constitution, depended upon the police parading regularly, by day and by night, along the high road to the King's Head Pond, and that none but a pettifogging chief magistrate, and an incapable town-council, corrupt tools of a corrupt administration, could have had the gratuitous audacity to cause the policeman to turn at the top of Prince's Street, thereby leaving the persons and property of his majesty's liege subjects unprotected and uncared for. He enlarged upon the fact ...
— Mr. Joseph Hanson, The Haberdasher • Mary Russell Mitford
... pay the greatest attention—in the department of government. Government has always been less important in China than in the Western world; it has always been rudimentary in its organisation; and for centuries it has been incompetent and corrupt. Of this corruption Westerners, it is true, make more than they fairly should. China is no more corrupt (to say the least) than the United States or Italy or France, or than England was in the eighteenth century. And much that is called corruption is recognised and established "squeeze," ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... called a patrol wagon, pushed me in, and drove to jail; and, Judge, you know the rest. All day yesterday I was locked up, my children at home alone, with no fire, no food, no mother." The judge dismissed the woman; but the saloonkeeper, the perjured policemen, nor the corrupt judge were ever prosecuted for their unlawfulness. The whole affair was dropped because the saloon power in Cincinnati reigns supreme. "This case is a matter of record in the Cincinnati courts." It is a disgraceful fact that the liquor-traffic ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... as he should have been, I am convinced that he might have restored the prosperity of his country. But, so far as I know, he stood alone in the government. He was a just and impartial minister where ministers are notoriously unjust, corrupt, and partisan, and, of my past failures, I regret none so much as that I was unable to coperate with him ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... years before the Christian era. This was looked upon for a long time as utterly inadmissible, as it was so clearly at variance with the chronology of our own sacred books; but, as time went on, large fragments of the original work of Manetho were more carefully studied and distinguished from corrupt transcriptions, the lists of kings at Karnak, Sacquarah, and the two temples at Abydos were brought to light, and the lists of court architects were discovered. Among all these monuments the scholar who visits Egypt is most impressed by the sculptured ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... confessional, could tell us nothing, but, when the matter was mentioned, only rolled his eyes up to heaven in an alarming manner. It was startling to think of all the unholy forces awakened by the temptation of Seraphina's helplessness and her immense fortune. Incorruptible himself, that man knew how to corrupt others. There might have been combined in one dark intrigue the covetousness of religious orders, the avarice of high officials—God knows what conspiracy—to help O'Brien's ambition, his passions. He could ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... bashful to the point of self-effacement, was the one who snatched Charles F. Dodge from the borders of Mexico and held him in an iron grip when every influence upon which Hummel could call for aid, from crooked police officials, corrupt judges and a gang of cutthroats under the guise of a sheriff's posse, were fighting for ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... down," as you call it, the men because they are Americans. I "run down" the accountant because he was either ignorant or corrupt. I "run down" the newspaper man because he was ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... line 4, the omission of the word "he" after the word "corrupt," which destroys the grammatical construction of the language and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... they are composed; but their merits are very striking, and are quite unalloyed by the graphic bombast of which the most able French artists have been with too much truth accused. The character of the Dauphin, whose exemplary life in the midst of a corrupt court, was a tacit reproof which his haughty father could ill ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... once surrendered to the influence of society must naturally become ever worse and worse the longer he is exposed to this influence. It would be worth the trouble to investigate the history of other extremely corrupt generations in this regard, and to see whether—for example, under the rule of the Roman emperors—what was once bad did not continually become ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... sport of the silly crowd that knelt down in profound reverence. Montaigne was no such double-dealer. We can fully believe him when he states that it is to him no small satisfaction and pleasure to 'have been preserved from the contagion of so corrupt an age; to have never brought affliction and ruin upon any person; not to have felt a desire for vengeance, or any envy; nor to have become a defaulter to his ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... in the cities, spoke very imperfect Latin, the genius of which is so different from that of the native tongues of Gaul. But while the cities afforded some correction for this universal tendency among the masses to corrupt the Latin language, the life of the rural districts, where the native tongues were still universally spoken, made the disintegration of the highly inflected Roman speech unavoidable. As the masses in the city and country became more Latinized, at ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... a pushing lot; it's very difficult to keep things out. They pretend to be guarding the public's morals, and they corrupt them with their beastly reports. But we haven't got to that yet. We're only seeing Dreamer to-day on the restitution question. Of course he understands that it's to lead to a divorce; but you must seem genuinely anxious to get Dartie back—you might ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... my belief that the labours of Peisistratus were of a purely editorial character; and there seems no more reason why corrupt and imperfect editions of Homer may not have been abroad in his day, than that the poems of Valerius Flaccus and Tibullus should have given so much trouble to Poggio, Scaliger, and others. But, after all, the main fault in all the ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... and 300 horse and foot, for the avowed purpose of aiding in the maintenance of order. But about that time it would seem that two sowars, the one named Rahem Khan, of Bishenpore, near Bithoor, the other Muddut Alee, of Bancla, and in the service of the Nana, were employed by Bala Sahib to corrupt the fidelity of the troops. The 2nd Cavalry, already ripe for mutiny, needed but little persuasion." Among those who perished were the heroic General Wheeler and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... those years of the late King's reign immediately preceding the revolution; and either through the contempt, supineness, or worse motives, of those who should have checked it, it existed in too great a degree: so that deists and republicans were permitted to corrupt the people, and undermine the ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... the like—have fallen into the gravest error, seeing that even if a man were as large as our earth, he would look no bigger than a little star which appears but as a speck in the universe; and seeing again that these men are mortal, and putrid and corrupt in their ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... unscrupulous, the men bent upon the stock-watering game and their own immediate enrichment, would crowd the honest men to the wall. Every line of least resistance is with the get-rich-quick type of manager. To hold his power and to corrupt us politically; to appropriate continuous unearned increment through overcapitalization, he must work not for the public good, but largely against it. In most free competitive business there is no such inherent antagonism between ...
— The Conflict between Private Monopoly and Good Citizenship • John Graham Brooks
... regarded by the ignorant as being specially attributes of things, because, as we have remarked, men consider all things as made for themselves, and call the nature of a thing good, evil, sound, putrid, or corrupt, just as they are affected by it. For example, if the motion by which the nerves are affected by means of objects represented to the eye conduces to well-being, the objects by which it is caused are called beautiful; ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... Jesus." The people addressed were in Ephesus, and they were likewise in Christ. What did it mean to be in Ephesus? Ephesus was one of the great centers of paganism. It was adorned with costly and magnificent temples. It was rich and voluptuous. Both private and public life were utterly corrupt. Even the religious practises of the Ephesians were unspeakably vile. This city was a moral bog, a sink of pollution, filled with all corruption, and reeking with vileness. It was a second Sodom. Vice stalked abroad everywhere and was ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... without question, of an excellence which sets them above either the enhancement or the ruin of Time, and at present when so much attention is given to music it is to be desired that such masterpieces should not be hidden away from the public, or only put forth in a corrupt and degraded form. The excellence of a nation in music can have no other basis than the education and practice of the people; and the quality of the music which is most universally sung must largely determine the public taste for ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges
... exquisite part of the inner man. It is to the rest of our nature what the flower is to the plant or what the pearl is to the shell. It is that within us which is specially allied to God and eternity. It is also, however, that which sin seeks to corrupt and our spiritual enemies seek to destroy. No doubt these are specially active in the article of death; it is their last chance; and fain would they seize the spirit as it parts from the body and, dragging it down, rob it of its destiny. Jesus knew that He was launching ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... of compliment to the greatness of the British empire or of the American Republic, if they, too, become morally corrupt; or will not those old vanished nations, in the magnificent words of the Hebrew prophet, greet the phantom of their departed greatness in the land of shadows: "What, art thou, also, become weak as we? Art thou also like unto us? Thy pomp is ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... unchanged salt-water, without any putrefaction ensuing. The ground, of course, on which the proof rested in this case was, that if the coralline were, as had often been thought, a zoophyte, the water would become corrupt, and poisonous to the life of the small animals in the same jar; and that its remaining fresh argued that the coralline had re-oxygenated it from time to time, and was therefore ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... spluttered; then he roared: "A perquisite! What about the Corrupt Practices Act? It was passed for rogues like you! I'll show you all about perquisites! You'll find yourself in ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... chance I had them. Now come, just one hand, since we are prisoners. I want to show you how nicely I can play. I won't corrupt you!' ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... that this persecution shall not only, as I said before, try men's hearts when it cometh and make them know their own affections—whether they have a corrupt greedy covetous mind or not—but also the very fame and expectation of it may teach them this lesson, ere ever the thing fall upon them itself. And this may be to their no little fruit, if they have the wit and the grace to take it in time while they ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... between us, and only looked sideways at them to make notes, but in two seconds they were all up and at attention, and two came running forward for Sahib's orders and cards, so I drove away lamenting. The Red Chupprassies, by the way, or "corrupt lictors," are official messengers wearing red Imperial livery, who are attached to all civil officers in India. See Mr Aberich-Mackay on the subject in ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... objections to such a circulation as a permanent system are, 1st, the facility of excessive expansion when expenditures exceed revenue; 2d, the danger of lavish and corrupt expenditure, stimulated by facility of expansion; 3d, the danger of fraud in management and supervision; 4th, the impossibility of providing it in sufficient amounts for the wants of the people whenever expenditures are reduced to equality with ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... evils in our cities are due to bad social and economic conditions. Harrisburg, Pa., was notoriously corrupt. A spirit of reform aroused the citizens, and Harrisburg stands today as a remarkable example of efficient government, yet the form of ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon
... Simple persons should not be put to the test about subtle questions of faith, unless they be suspected of having been corrupted by heretics, who are wont to corrupt the faith of simple people in such questions. If, however, it is found that they are free from obstinacy in their heterodox sentiments, and that it is due to their simplicity, it is no fault ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... have allowed the fellow to have put foot on board any ship, in which I was interested," said Mr Randall, a merchant to whom I had a letter. "He was bad enough to corrupt a whole crew. Who knows what sort of fellows he had with him? Captain Spinks might have been very respectable, though not much of a seaman, and so may be Mr Noakes, though I know little about him, except that he can drive a hard bargain, and likes ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... the middle of the fourth century of the era in which we live; and maintained such a strong influence, that for century after century the whole land was in darkness and ignorance; and though the Christian religion has remained, it is in a debased and corrupt form. Europe knew nothing of Abyssinia worth the name for ages. Then a princess of Judah, Judith, prosecuted designs upon poor Abyssinia, sought out the members of the reigning family, and would have caused each one to be slain. Fortunately, a young prince was carried off to a place of safety. ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... O noxious, pigmy bird, whether it be you fly Or paddle in the stagnant pools that sweltering, festering lie— I curse you and your evil kind for that you do me wrong, Engendering poisons that corrupt my petted muse of song; Go, get thee hence, and nevermore discomfit me and mine— I fain would barter all thy brood for ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... their duty well, one who does will not accuse another who is fulfilling his; painters are not in any way unsociable through pride, but either because they find few pursuits equal to painting, or in order not to corrupt themselves with the useless conversation of idle people, and debase the intellect from the lofty imaginations in which they are always absorbed. And I affirm to your Excellency that even his Holiness annoys and wearies me when at ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... continued he, for the loss of publick and private Virtue we are beholden to your Men of Parts forsooth; it is with them no matter what is done, so it is done with an Air. But to me who am so whimsical in a corrupt Age as to act according to Nature and Reason, a selfish Man in the most shining Circumstance and Equipage, appears in the same Condition with the Fellow above-mentioned, but more contemptible in Proportion to what more he robs the Publick of and enjoys above him. I ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... what promise thou findest in the word of Christ, strain it whither thou canst, so thou dost not corrupt it, and his blood and merits will answer all; what the word saith, or any true consequence that is drawn therefrom, that we may boldly venture upon. As here in the text he saith, "And him that cometh," indefinitely, without the least intimation of the rejection of any, though never so great, if ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to dispossess them of their sovereignty over western Asia. But in this, as in most other cases of conquest throughout the East, success was followed almost immediately by degeneracy. As captive Greece captured her fierce conqueror, so the subdued Assyrians began at once to corrupt their subduers. Without condescending to a close imitation of Assyrian manners and customs, the Medes proceeded directly after their conquest to relax the severity of their old habits and to indulge in the delights of soft and luxurious living. The historical ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... sound and sufficient ground, to build a charge against the child upon, I mean, as to eternal condemnation; for that is the thing contended for; then, as I said, Satan must fall "like lightning to the ground," and be cast over the bar, as a corrupt and illegal pleader. But this is so, as in part is proved already, and will be further made out by that which follows. They that have indeed Christ to be their Advocate, are themselves, by virtue of another law than ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the fool!" she said, "who hast made all this coil, to wall up a poor cat in a cupboard, as it is thou who art the base knave and shameless pandar, who hast attempted to do murther, and all to sell thine own wife to a corrupt and loathsome tyrant!" ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... "I have sometimes been afraid that he kept too much company with that Tam Hillary of yours; but twenty Tam Hillarys would not corrupt Dick Middlemas." ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... substitute. Secondarilie, say they, a woman borne to rule ouer anyrealme, may chose her a husband, and to him she may transfer and geue her authoritie and right. To both I answer in fewe wordes. First that frome a corrupt and venomed fountein can spring no holsome water: Secondarilie that no person hath power to geue the thing, which doth not iustlie appertein to them selues[147]: But the authoritie of a woman is a corrupted fountein, and therfore from her can neuer spring any lauful officer. She is not ...
— The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment - of Women • John Knox
... from conversing with me: he even called me as usual each morning to join him at his desk; and I fear the corrupt man within him had a pleasure unimparted to, and unshared by, the pure Christian, in evincing with what skill he could, while acting and speaking apparently just as usual, extract from every deed and every phrase the spirit of interest and approval which had formerly communicated a certain austere ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... purposes she herself had been forgotten. For one thing, it would have hurt her; for another, he saw no reason why he should tell her. Upon occasion he could be as ruthless as a stone; if he were so now he knew it not, but in deceiving her deceived himself. Man of a world that was corrupt enough, he was of course quietly assured that he could bend this woodland creature—half child, half dryad—to the form of his bidding. To do so was in his power, but not his pleasure. He meant to leave her as she was; to accept the adoration of the child, ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... not to be budged. "I knew how 'twould be," she spoke up, facing the company. "I took that preacher-fellow 'pon the ground hop, as I thought, and stopped his nonsense; but something whispered to me that 'twas a false hope. Evil communications corrupt good manners, and now the mischief's done. There's no peace for Saltash till you men learn your place again, and I'm resolved to teach it to 'ee. You want to know how? Well, to start with, by means of a board and a piece o' chalk, same as ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... holiest emotions of the soul, should call forth and develop the fiercest, the darkest, and most unrelenting passions of the human heart! Yet so it proved in this instance. Their fierce, fanatical enthusiasm was a powerful element of strength to the Roundheads, which was lacking to the effeminate, corrupt, and godless Cavaliers. With such an auxiliary the struggle could not be doubtful; religious ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... in common but Whiggism. The Lord Lieutenant was not only licentious and corrupt, but was distinguished from other libertines and jobbers by a callous impudence which presented the strongest contrast to the Secretary's gentleness and delicacy. Many parts of the Irish administration at this time appear to have deserved serious blame. But against Addison ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... level avarice. At the time The Traveller was written many noted English statesmen had low moral standards and were willing to use corrupt means to gain their ends. Still, the great body of the people were but slightly affected by this state of things, and England was soon to enter upon a new ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... would not be too hasty with the death sentence. What matters it what Tepti may think! He is a good embalmer, reticent of speech and his belief in death and nothingness if expressed would neither find believers nor corrupt our faith. The thought of non-existence is not acceptable to the Egyptians; it lacks enthusiasm, it lacks certainty, it lacks hope; there is no appeal to ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... altar-cloths I will weave with my silver and gold! Yes, the wages of sin shall not be death, I will pay them to the life eternal; my dowry as the bride of Christ. I, too, shall be laid on the altar, my complex corrupt soul shall be simplified and purified, and the Holy Mother will lead me by the hand like a little child. But all this will be caviare to you. Adieu. I will pray ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... of foxes and the hearts of wolves. To deceive you was child's play. You are an honest man. It is always the honest man who is the victim; he is never the culprit. If honest men were as smart as the corrupt ones, Mr. Barnes, there would be no such thing as crime. If the honest man kept one hand on his purse and the other on his revolver, he would be more than a match for the thief. You were no match for Chester Naismith. Do not ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... ready to rise against, than for Charles Stuart;' that, in the town of Leeds, 'not thirty men were disaffected to the present Government;' and that 'there was no design on foot' even in 'the most corrupt and rotten places of the Nation,' such as Hampshire, Dorsetshire, Kent, and the Eastern Counties. From Bristol to York all was quiet, or wished to be so, during February, March, and ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... woman herself, when the grog was disposed of, facilitated her charge's dispositions for the night, and retired to rest with an ill-digested idea that she had interrupted a conversation about the corrupt gaieties of a vicious foreign capital, inhabited chiefly by ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... woman-whipping, the mind-darkening, the soul-destroying religion that exists in the southern states of America. It is because I regard the one as good, and pure, and holy, that I cannot but regard the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. Loving the one I must hate the other; holding to the one I must reject ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... by Eusebius, and who appears to have written about the year 212, appeals to the ancient copies of the Scriptures, in refutation of some corrupt readings alleged by the followers of Artemon. (Lardner, Cred. ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... reputation, and he never engaged in lobbying at Washington for money, although friendship several times prompted him to advocate appropriations for questionable jobs—the renewal of patents which were monopolies, and the election of Public Printers who were notoriously corrupt. ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... cleared and confirmed, but to bring it home to speciall use, by application to his hearers: Which albeit it prove a worke of great difficulty to himselfe, requiring much prudence, zeale, and meditation, and to the naturall and corrupt man will bee very unpleasant; yet hee is to endeavour to perform it in such a manner that his auditors may feele the Word of God to be quick and powerfull, and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart; and that if any unbeleever or ignorant person bee present, hee may have the secrets ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... allusions in the play a result of the corrupt text, ignorance, ridicule of learning? Or are they introduced to give a lively ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... others—and a wrong may be excusable in 1885 which is monstrous in 1895. The primitive virtue which had characterised the farmers broke down in the face of temptation. The country Boers were little affected, some of them not at all, but the Pretoria Government became a most corrupt oligarchy, venal and incompetent to the last degree. Officials and imported Hollanders handled the stream of gold which came in from the mines, while the unfortunate Uitlander who paid nine-tenths of the taxation was fleeced at every turn, and met with laughter ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... blood and slime, of torn, evil-smelling flesh and the sickening remnants of violent death, were gone. Either some of the later explosions had thrown up from the deep quantities of water which, though foul and corrupt itself, had still some cleansing power left, or else the writhing mass which stirred from far below had helped to drag down and obliterate the items of horror. A grey dust, partly of fine sand, partly of the waste of the falling ruin, covered everything, ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... behind. The government of these United States, which, in the inconsistent, uncontinuous, and often bungling way of all governments, has probably tried to do its duty by the Indian—often succeeding only in making its benevolence a source of pauperism, and often betrayed by unfaithful officials and corrupt citizens into shameful acts of bad faith—was portrayed as a huge ogre, a giant Blunderbore, drinking Indian blood from two-quart bowls, and never breakfasting but on Indian baby. Meantime there filed through Miss Slopham's flowing sentences, like a procession ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... since the beginning of the war, building docks and sheds and railway yards; but they had never been able to build enough, and the transport department of the corrupt Russian government having gone to pieces, here were mountains of supplies of every sort you could think of for an army, piled high on the shores. At least, that was what Jimmie had been told; he had read in ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... give again to the Senate and the Nobility that power of which they had been gradually deprived by the leaders of the popular party. His Constitution did not last, because the aristocracy were thoroughly selfish and corrupt, and exercised the power which Sulla had intrusted to them only for their own aggrandizement. Their shameless conduct soon disgusted the provinces as well as the capital; the people again regained their power, but the consequence was ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... can convey an adequate notion of the corrupt state of the clergy at the time. To form any just appreciation of this, it is necessary to take a peep at some of the documents that have survived—such a document, for instance, as that Bull of this Pope Pius II which forbade priests ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... said Beauty, 'who make worse monsters than you, and I prefer you, notwithstanding your looks, to those who under the semblance of men hide false, corrupt, ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... take care, Lettice, that everything is prepared as you know he would like to have it. Going into Parliament, is he? Yes, I have always told you that he would. He is a born orator, child; he will serve his country brilliantly—not for place, nor for corrupt motives of any kind, but as a patriot and a Christian, to whom duty is the law of ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... disappointment; but he said dryly: "Then Warwick would propose that Clarence should be king?—and the great barons and the honest burghers and the sturdy yeomen would, you think, not stand aghast at the manifesto which declares, not that the dynasty of York is corrupt and faulty, but that the younger son should depose the elder,—that younger son, mark me! not only unknown in war and green in council, but gay, giddy, vacillating; not subtle of wit and resolute of deed, as he who so aspires should be!—Montagu, a vain dream!"—Richard ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his real mildness in dealing with men was as remarkable as his apparent pride and assumption. His power, which had been so grudged and envied, and called monarchy and despotism, now was proved to have been the saving of the State; such an amount of corrupt dealing and wickedness suddenly broke out in public affairs, which he before had crushed and forced to hide itself, and so prevented its becoming ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... that you were at the bottom of the affair. So easy to make out afterwards that it was an accident! So easy to spirit Brown away! So easy to explain everything! Why, Ravengar, you intended to murder me! I saw the whole scheme in a flash. You have corrupted many of my servants to-day. But you didn't corrupt all of them. And because you didn't, because you couldn't, I am alive. You would like to know how I got out. But you will never know, Ravengar. You will ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... continually to become painters who have no real gift for the work; and on whom these motives of mere worldly interest have exclusive influence;—men who torment and abuse the patient workers, eclipse or thrust aside all delicate and good pictures by their own gaudy and coarse ones, corrupt the taste of the public, and do the greatest amount of mischief to the schools of art in their day which it is possible for their capacities to effect; and it is quite wonderful how much mischief may be done even by small capacity. If you could by any means succeed ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... lawless nomads, disreputable people, without steady trade,[2402] scoundrels, and blackguards, who, like uprooted, decaying seaweed, drift from coast to coast around the entire circle of the Mediterranean sea; a veritable sink filled with the dregs of twenty corrupt and semi-barbarous civilizations, where the scum of crime cast forth from the prisons of Genoa, Piedmont, Sicily, indeed, of all Italy, of Spain, of the Archipelago, and of Barbary,3 accumulates and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... have crept, like astrology under the Roman Empire, into the void left by religious faith. Wealth has been pouring into England, and luxury with wealth. Our public journals proclaim, as you may perhaps have seen, that the society of our capital is unusually corrupt. The comic as well as the serious signs of the reaction appear everywhere. A tone of affected cynicism pervades a portion of our high intellect; and a pretended passion for prize-fighting shows that men of culture are weary of civilization, and wish to go back to barbarism ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... ingenuity, with a solitary exception in the case of Arima, who, it was at once recognised, was so faithfully and devotedly attached to his royal master that it would be worse than folly to attempt to corrupt him; he was therefore left severely alone; the most stringent precautions being taken to keep the whole thing secret ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... visit. This change of environment might tone Julio down a little. Perhaps his ambition might waken on seeing the diligence of his cousins, each with a career. The Frenchman had, besides, an underlying belief in the more corrupt influence of Paris as compared with the purity of the customs in ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... neatly set forth what he considers the task of the author. According to him, the man of to-day has lost courage; he interests himself too little in life, his desire to live with dignity has grown weaker, "an odor of putrefaction surrounds him, cowardice and slavery corrupt his heart, laziness binds his hands and his mind." But, at the same time, life grows in breadth and depth, and, from day to day, men are learning to question. And it is the writer who ought to answer their questions; but he should not content himself with straightening out the balance ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... of this Experiment may be conjectured to be that one Animal may live with the bloud of another; and consequently, that those Animals, that want bloud, or have corrupt bloud, may be supplyed from other with a sufficient quantity, and of such as is good, provided the Transfusion be often repeated, by reason of the quick expence that is made of ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... sweetness found in the flower. Outside man there is no justice; within him injustice cannot be. The body may revel in ill—gotten pleasure, but virtue alone can bring contentment to the soul. Our inner happiness is measured out to us by an incorruptible Judge and the mere endeavour to corrupt him still further reduces the sum of the final, veritable happiness he lets fall into the shining scale. It is lamentable enough that a Rogron should be able to torture a helpless child, and darken the few ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... down in the canoe. While they were speaking, I thought I detected a few words which sounded like Spanish; and listening more attentively, I found that the eldest of the two was speaking the lingua geral—a corrupt Portuguese, mixed with Indian words, generally used throughout the whole length of the Amazon. It was so like the language Naro and his Indians had employed when speaking to us, that I could make out, with a little difficulty, what was ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... about heaven and hell, making the one sound incredibly dull, the other incredibly painful, I used to think that I'd rather go to neither, but just be stuffed, like Mother's Blenheim, Beau Brummel, whose soul I fancied had leave to stop in his body so long as moth and rust did not corrupt. He seemed rather out of things, though, poor dear, standing forever in the same position in a glass case, with one paw up begging for something which nobody gave, while the years dragged on; and I'd begun to feel as if I were falling ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... immeasurable only because, and so long as, we let our selfish personal interests govern and mold our public and social action. Altruism will not heal the inward sore, but at best only put on its surface a plausible plaster which leaves the inward still corrupt; for altruism is a policy and not an impulse, proceeding not from the heart but from the intelligence—the policy of enlightened selfishness. It has already been tried thoroughly, and proved thoroughly inefficient; it is the motive power behind charitable organization; it breeds a cold, ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... the end of the perspective, rises a chapel designed with infinite taste and simple elegance by M. A. Buonarotti. Further on, an ancient church, in the corrupt Greek style of the primitive Christians, incrusted with white marble, porphyry, and verd antique. The interior presents a crowded assemblage of ornaments, elaborate mosaic pavements, and inlaid work without end. The high altar, placed in a semicircular recess, ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... sentence. Whilst the cause continues under hearing in any shape, or in any stage of the process, it is the duty of the judge to receive every offer of evidence, apparently material, suggested to him, though the parties themselves, through negligence, ignorance, or corrupt collusion, should not bring it forward. A judge is not placed in that high situation merely as a passive instrument of parties. He has a duty of his own, independent of them, and that duty is to investigate the truth. There may be no prosecutor. In our law a permanent ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... bold, ingenious and quick-witted men, but it is doubtful if Gushing possessed the dash and intrepidity which Butler showed in dealing with the situation at Baltimore. That portion of his military career was certainly a good success, and how far he should be held responsible for the corrupt proceedings of his brother at New Orleans I do not undertake ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... rights as a free people and of our honor as a sovereign Government. The military masters of Germany denied us the right to be neutral. They filled our unsuspecting communities with vicious spies and conspirators and sought to corrupt the opinion of our people in their own behalf. When they found that they could not do that, their agents diligently spread sedition among us and sought to draw our own citizens from their allegiance—and some of those agents were men connected with the official embassy of ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... good point in his book. He said he found that Philadelphia, ruled almost entirely by Americans, was more corrupt than New York, where the Irish do almost all the governin'. I could have told him that before he did any investigatin' if he had come to me. The Irish was born to rule, and they're the honestest people in the world. Show me the Irishman who would steal ...
— Plunkitt of Tammany Hall • George Washington Plunkitt
... of esteem and regard which had been presented by various sovereigns to the different American ministers who had been sent to their courts. The object of the law which exacted this deposit from every individual so honoured, was, they told us, to prevent the possibility of bribery being used to corrupt any envoy of the Republic. I should think it would be a better way to select for the office such men as they felt could not be seduced by a sword or a snuff-box. But they, doubtless, know their own ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... unspoken of men and unheard: They were shadows that willed as he would, that were made and unmade by his word. His word was darkness and light, and a wisdom that makes men mad Sent blindness upon them for sight, that they saw but and heard as he bade. Cast forth and corrupt from the birth by the crime of creation, they stood Convicted of evil on earth by the grace of a God found good. The grace that enkindled and quickened the darkness of hell with flame Bade man, though ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... arrived a new pastor, Everard Bogardus, in the same ship with a schoolmaster—the first in the colony—and the new governor, Van Twiller. The governor was incompetent and corrupt, and the minister was faithful and plain-spoken; what could result but conflict? During Van Twiller's five years of mismanagement, nevertheless, the church emerged from the mill-loft and was installed in a barn-like meeting-house of wood. During the equally wretched administration of Kieft, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... "strict construction" of the constitution according to which the powers granted to the federal government ought to be narrowly construed in order to preserve the State governments, the source of liberty, from encroachment. He denounced the bank, accordingly, as unwarranted by the constitution, corrupt, and dangerous to the safety of the country. In the congressional contest Hamilton was successful, for all his recommendations were adopted, but at the cost of creating a lasting antagonism in the southern States and ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... Dudley Foulke, president of the National Civil Service Commission, spoke informally on An Object Lesson in Municipal Politics, describing the revolution of the citizens against the corrupt government of his home city, Richmond, Ind., and the valuable assistance rendered by the women, and, as always, demanding ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... fortunes will not be for vulgar ostentation, but for the service of humanity and the glory of the State, where the privileges of freemen will be so valued that no one will be mean enough to sell his vote nor corrupt enough to attempt to buy a vote, where the truth will at last be recognized, that the society is not prosperous when half its members are lucky, and half are miserable, and that that nation can only be truly great ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... skillfully alongside and had no trouble in snapping magnetic lines to her lock. Some minutes later the three of them passed into her. There was still air in her cabins and corridors. Air that bore a faint corrupt taint which set Bat to sniffing greedily and could be picked up even by the ...
— All Cats Are Gray • Andre Alice Norton
... and gave themselves up, without control, to the intoxication of delight. In so doing they laid themselves open to the snares and attacks of many secret enemies, who availed themselves of their frequent gatherings to sow the seeds of discord and corrupt their minds with false political doctrines. Far better would it have been if they had left to the Sovereign in whom, at first, they placed unbounded confidence, and the wise Ministers whom he called to his counsels, the care of forwarding the cause of ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... well-being are increased; the opportunities of exclusive luxury are increased in equal measure; exclusion may bring resentment; resentment may call forth oppression, armed with new weapons, guided by wider understanding, but prompted by the same corrupt spirit ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... this reckless and corrupt spirit confined to business men; it began to break out in official circles, and public men who, a few years before, had been thought above all possibility of taint, became luxurious, reckless, cynical ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White
... Ayisha goes with you tonight he'll try to corrupt old Ali Baba or one of his sons," said ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... Methodists, had done all in their power to attract the king of the Indians to their sect, going so far as to give him all sorts of provisions, and other valuables, such as cows, pigs, farming implements, &c. One of these Methodists was sent among the Indians to learn their language, and so corrupt them more easily. In this way the report got about that their Chief, Benjamin (which was the name of the king) had joined the Methodists with all his family. Mr. Mignault, parish priest of Halifax, and myself knew this to be false, for Benjamin himself, whom ...
— Memoir • Fr. Vincent de Paul
... the Turks it was difficult. The Turks were beautifully corrupt. By paying for it I could get permission to excavate on any property owned by Christians. But the minute I touched Moslem places the Turks became fanatical. The Arabs, now, are different—fanatics, too, but with a new sort of fanaticism—new to ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... countries. The surplus grain of the Argentine and Australia was not available because of the length of the voyage and the scarcity of shipping; the Russian wheat supply was cut off by enemy control of the Dardanelles even before it was dissipated by corrupt officials or reckless revolutionaries. The Allies, on the verge of starvation, therefore looked to North America. Yet the stock of cereals when the United States entered the war was at a lower level than it had been for ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... perish. These are the necessary effects of the fall of man by disobedience from that state of happiness and holiness in which he was formed by a beneficent Creator. In a state of inaction, Friends have been exposed to the influences of a corrupt public sentiment; they have, to a considerable extent, imbibed the prejudice against color, while some of them have been caught by the gilded ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... treasure, Miss Innes," he said brokenly, "where neither moth nor rust corrupt, nor thieves ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of the state, an absolute government will certainly more effectually prohibit them from, or punish them for publishing such thoughts, than a free one could do. But how does that cramp the genius of an epic, dramatic, or lyric poet? or how does it corrupt the eloquence of an orator in the pulpit or at the bar? The number of good French authors, such as Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Boileau, and La Fontaine, who seemed to dispute it with the Augustan age, flourished under the despotism of Lewis XIV.; and the celebrated authors of the Augustan ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... dynamic force through the operation of which the race is to attain its ideals." To my mind Boller's view of the power for righteousness troubled itself chiefly with the opposing political party, as was shown by the instance he cited where his own paper had exposed the corrupt Democratic ring in Pokono County and had put in its place a group of Republican patriots. Doctor Todd, however, said afterward that Boller had treated the subject in masterly fashion and that he was proud that McGraw had had its ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... of the convent, were he gone?" said Father Johannes. "All these blessed reforms which he has brought about would fall back; for our nature is fearfully corrupt, and ever tends to wallow in the mire of sin and pollution. What changes hath he wrought in us all! To be sure, the means were sometimes severe. I remember, brother, when he had you under ground for more ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... "wilful waste leads to woful want"; but did not the "waster" know this well-worn saying from his early years downwards? What good, then, did it do him? Again, how many have been benefited by the saying of the ancient Greek poet, that "evil communications corrupt good manners"?—albeit they had it frequently before them in their school "copy-books." Are the maxims of morality useless, then, because they ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... Cutty returned the notebooks to their abiding place, his memory refreshed. The poor devil! A dissolute father and uncle, dissolute forbears, corrupt blood weakened by intermarriage, what hope was there? Only one—the rich, fiery blood of the ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... the hereditary name of a long and illustrious line of Dakota chiefs. Wabashaw is a corrupt pronunciation. The name is a contraction of Wa-pa-ha-sa, which is from Wa-ha-pa, the standard or pole used in the Dakota dances and upon which feathers of various colors are tied, and not from Wa-pa—leaf, as has been generally supposed. Therefore Wapasa ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... "although, as in this poor woman's case and in many others, gold is not the best thing to find. It often brings with it so much sorrow and sin as to be a curse to its owner. The only safe treasure is that laid up in heaven, where 'neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... by inquisitive persons to satisfy their curiosity; but no light whatever could be obtained from the little groom, who evaded all inquiries, not by refusals or by silence, but by sarcasms which seemed to be beyond his years and to prove him a corrupt ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... regard work as a degradation. Hence they are a remarkably indolent and effete community, and on landing from a ship there is seldom a porter to be seen to carry one's luggage. Their speech is a dialect called Chabucano—a mixture of very corrupt Spanish and ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... greater decorum, if he knows that his merits are sure to be fairly acknowledged, and his faults certain to be accurately noted. But this object may be attained, I believe, without an academy. On the other hand, what danger there is in an academy becoming cliquey, nay even corrupt. We have an academy here in the painting art, but except that it collects within its walls every year a vaster number of daubs than it is possible for any one ever to see with any degree of comfort, I don't know what particular use it is of. As a school or college it may be of ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... naturally. Port first became a kind of proper name, and then mouth was added, so that "the mouth of Port," i.e. of the place called Portus by the Romans, became at last Portsmouth. But this does not satisfy the early historians, and, as happens so frequently when there is anything corrupt in language, a legend springs up almost spontaneously to remove all doubts and difficulties. Thus we read in the venerable Saxon Chronicle under the year 501, "that Port came to Britain with his two sons, Bieda and Maegla, with two ships, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller |
