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Corrupt   /kərˈəpt/   Listen
Corrupt

adjective
1.
Lacking in integrity.  "A corrupt and incompetent city government"
2.
Not straight; dishonest or immoral or evasive.  Synonym: crooked.
3.
Containing errors or alterations.  Synonym: corrupted.  "Spoke a corrupted version of the language"
4.
Touched by rot or decay.  Synonym: tainted.  "'corrupt' is archaic"



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"Corrupt" Quotes from Famous Books



... present day, "waps" is considered a vulgar way of pronouncing the word; but it was correct English at the time of which I am writing. "Wasp" is really the corrupt pronunciation. In the same way, they said ...
— Our Little Lady - Six Hundred Years Ago • Emily Sarah Holt

... direction of the Andes, and then showing how we had glided 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, ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston

... millions of women will never marry. The supply for matrimony is greater than the demand, the first lesson of which is that every woman ought to prepare to take care of herself if need be. Then there are thousands of men who have no right to marry, because they have become so corrupt of character that their offer of marriage is an insult to any good woman. Society will have to be toned up and corrected on this subject, so that it shall realize that if a woman who has sacrificed her honor is unfitted for marriage, so is any man who has ever sacrificed ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... who were sufficiently bold to take risks, to ship goods for Chili and Peru, and run them in at some place along the immense coast-line, evading the lazy eyes of perfunctory Spanish officials, or securing their corrupt connivance by bribes. Contraband trade was, in fact, extensively practised, and plenty of people in the Spanish colonies throve on it. As a modern historian writes: "The vast extent of the border of ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... in this matter only that maritime affairs in the East took a turn contrary to Nelson's wishes. Since he had persuaded himself that to bolster up the corrupt and tottering throne of Naples was the most important of his functions, he had become desirous that the isolation and blockade of the French army in Egypt,—a factor so decisive by its numbers, its brilliant efficiency, and the singular genius and renown of its general and his lieutenants,—should ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... most frightful devastation, advanced upon Halle; from this place he renewed his demands on the Elector, in a tone still more urgent and threatening. The previous policy of this prince, both from his own inclination, and the persuasions of his corrupt ministers had been to promote the interests of the Emperor, even at the expense of his own sacred obligations, and but very little tact had hitherto kept him inactive. All this but renders more astonishing the infatuation of the Emperor or his ministers ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... the fierce resistance of the native Caribs. France ceded possession to Great Britain in 1763, which made the island a colony in 1805. In 1980, two years after independence, Dominica's fortunes improved when a corrupt and tyrannical administration was replaced by that of Mary Eugenia CHARLES, the first female prime minister in the Caribbean, who remained in office for 15 years. Some 3,000 Carib Indians still living on Dominica are the only ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... Fructidor, and who the 13th Vendemiaire, from the steps of the Church of Saint Roch had crushed the Paris conservatives, this was a very aristocratic way of talking, reminding one of the old regime. In 1816 Napoleon said again: "Old and corrupt nations cannot be governed like the virtuous peoples of antiquity. For one man nowadays who would sacrifice everything for the public welfare, there are thousands who take no thought of anything except their own interests, pleasures, and vanity. ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... sterility. Public opinion censured him severely for it "because people thought that not even the desire for children ought to have been preferred to conjugal fidelity and affection."[96] As the Empire extended and Rome became more worldly and corrupt, the reasons for divorce became more trivial. Sempronius Sophus divorced his wife because she had attended some public games without his knowledge.[97] Cicero, who was a lofty moralist—on paper,—put away his wife Terentia in order to marry a rich young ward and get ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... laws, and to obey them as sacred and divine things. For our good, in order to save us from sinking down into the same state of poverty and misery in which the savages are. For our good, because we are fallen creatures, with selfish and corrupt wills, continually apt to break loose, and please ourselves at the expense of our neighbours. For our good, because, however fallen we are, we are still brothers, members of God's family, bound to each other by duty and relationship, if not ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley

... agriculturists, servants, trotters, ignoble, low, poor, pedants and such like, for otherwise there could not be philosophers, meditators, cultivators of souls, masters, captains, nobles, illustrious ones, rich, wise, and the rest who may be heroes like to gods. Now why should we force ourselves to corrupt the state of nature which has separated the universe into things major and minor, superior and inferior, illustrious and obscure, worthy and unworthy, not only outside ourselves but also inside in the substance ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno

... composition runs in the form of a dialogue. One of the disputants says: "You say to me that the Church of Rome is corrupt. What then? to cut off a limb is a strange way of saving it from the influence of some constitutional ailment. Indigestion may cause cramp in the extremities; yet we spare our poor feet notwithstanding. Surely there is such a religious ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... opportunity again occurs for building up on some sham principle a party of rum and faro-banks, low demagogue-ism, ignorance, reaction, and vulgarity. Then from his present toad-like swelling and whispering, we shall hear the full-expanded fiend roar out into a real life. It is the old story of history—the corrupt and venal arraigning itself against truth and terming the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... old childhood principles that success came from faithfulness to duty, that evil was necessarily punished or virtue necessarily rewarded—that honest poverty was happier than corrupt riches. ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... predominantly, if not wholly, Christian from the middle of the second century, many converts were, we are told, to be found among the inhabitants of Persia, Media, Parthia Proper, and even Bactria. The infusion, however, was not sufficient to leaven to any serious extent the corrupt mass of heathenism into which it was projected; and we cannot say that the general character of the Parthian empire, or of the manners and customs of its subjects, was importantly affected by the new religion, though it had an extraordinary ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson

... breach of faith. The commander of a besieged town, he insisted, is always at liberty to propose a parley, which the enemy can accept or not as he chooses. At any rate, it was not for the archduke, who had hired a traitor to corrupt the garrison, to make a complaint of treachery. Twelve hundred men were employed for the next eight days in strengthening the works, Sir Francis being always with them at night, when the water was low, encouraging them by his presence ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty

... spoil-alls amongst your theologians; intercepted correspondences depose to it. The allied princes, having been unable to crush me by their invasions and artillery, have recourse to internal and clandestine manoeuvres. Having failed to corrupt my soldiers, they have essayed to corrupt my clergy, as they did at Montauban and La Rochelle, in ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... done, and in the case of a popular favorite like Jackson, this might have been foreseen to be irresistible. His election four years later was almost a foregone conclusion, but, as if to make it wholly sure, there came up the rumor of a "corrupt bargain" between the successful candidate and Mr. Clay, whose forces had indeed joined with those of Mr. Adams to make a majority. For General Jackson there could be nothing more fortunate. The mere ghost of a corrupt bargain is worth many thousand votes to the lucky man who conjures ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... their faces and bemoaned their miseries every night. Fifty thousand lairs surrounded him where people lived so unwholesomely that fair water put into their crowded rooms on Saturday night, would be corrupt on Sunday morning; albeit my lord, their county member, was amazed that they failed to sleep in company with their butcher's meat. Miles of close wells and pits of houses, where the inhabitants gasped for air, stretched far away towards every point of the compass. Through the heart of the ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... that they might give way in a moment of weakness to the temptations of a corrupt nature, sought relief in suicide, which was called the endura. There were two forms for the sick heretic, suffocation and fasting. The candidate for death was asked whether he desired to be a martyr or a confessor. ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard

... persons involves a certain inequality, in so far as something is allotted to a person out of that proportion to him in which the equality of justice consists. Wherefore it is evident that judgment is rendered corrupt by ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... she had brought, and from which she had previously been reading. "There is a verse there which tells us that we are to lay up riches in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal," she answered in an unaffected tone. "I should not expect interest, and I am very sure that I should be ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston

... cause of death, and, in cases where poisoning is suspected, the nature of the poison used. Now all this supposed exactness and infallibility is imaginary; and to treat a doctor as if his mistakes were necessarily malicious or corrupt malpractices (an inevitable deduction from the postulate that the doctor, being omniscient, cannot make mistakes) is as unjust as to blame the nearest apothecary for not being prepared to supply you with sixpenny-worth of the elixir of life, or the nearest motor garage for not having ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw

... vanity, concupiscence, and gluttony; without which, failings will be multiplied; pure and faithful souls God makes his chaste spouses; they always think on him, and place all their desires on him; but those who love the earth are earthly in their thoughts and affections, their corrupt inclinations gain such a mastery, that they seem natural to them. Vigilance is absolutely necessary to remove this insinuating enemy; and purity of conscience begets prudence, which can never be found under the tyranny of the passions, and which is the eye that guides the ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... administration, and even his most indifferent measures, tend to this object; and that, as the crisis approaches, his personal interest takes the place of his interest in the public good. The principle of re-eligibility renders the corrupt influence of elective government still ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... he straightway forgot what he had uttered during his vision. Before he passed away, he spoke once more, saying: "If such be the rest which the righteous obtain after their death, it were better for them to die than live in this corrupt world and see ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... ever so change the species of the tree as to enable men to gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles. Here again the dualism of Jesus Christ's teaching is distinctly recognized. "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." And what is the remedy for a corrupt tree? The cutting off of the old and the bringing in of a new scion and stock. The life of God can alone beget the likeness of God; the divine type is wrapped up in the same germ which ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon

... what is commonly called an educated man. He was a brave and honest Englishman, instinctively opposed to jobbery, and to all the other modes by which a corrupt government plunders a laborious people. The consequence was that during the first years of his editorial life he was frequently in very hot water. When "The Times" had been in existence little more than a year, ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton

... admiration of the Roman Senate, as if composed of men sincerely desirous to resolve what they should think best for their country[585]. My friend would allow no such character to the Roman Senate; and he maintained that the British Parliament was not corrupt, and that there was no occasion to corrupt its members; asserting, that there was hardly ever any question of great importance before Parliament, any question in which a man might not very well vote either upon one side or the other. He said there had been none in his time except ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... conflict ends in practical Atheism, in the other, in abject Superstition. And these two, Atheism and Superstition, however different and even opposite they may seem to be, are really offshoots from the same corrupt root,—"the evil heart of unbelief which departeth from the living God." In the case of the great majority of mankind, who are little addicted to speculative inquiry, or to serious thought of any kind, it may be safely affirmed that, in the absence of Revelation, they will inevitably ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... whole earth, and separated the higher from the lower age of mankind." The Hindu tradition, as related by Sir William, though disfigured by strange additions, is still more explicit. An evil demon having purloined the sacred books from Brahma, the whole race of men became corrupt except the seven Nishis, and in especial the holy Satyavrata, the prince of a maritime region, who, when one day bathing in a river, was visited by the god Vishnu in the shape of a fish, and thus addressed by him:—"In seven days ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... But as to the odour itself, how shall I describe it? It was not alone that it was composed of all the ills of mortality and with the pungent, acrid smell of blood, but it seemed as though corruption had become itself corrupt. Faugh! It sickens me to think of it. Every breath exhaled by that monster seemed to have clung to the place and intensified ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... one 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 ...
— Plunkitt of Tammany Hall • George Washington Plunkitt

... has left upon record his opinion of his Minister for Foreign Affairs, delivered at a time when he had nothing to expect from the favors of men or the caprices of Fortune. "Talleyrand," said Napoleon, at St. Helena, "is a corrupt man, who has betrayed all parties and persons. Wary and circumspect, always a traitor, but always in conspiracy with Fortune, Talleyrand treats his enemies as if they were one day to become his friends, and his friends as if they were to become his enemies. He is a man of unquestionable ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... of their young leader, Alfonso; who was found dead in his bed, on the 5th of July, 1468, at the village of Cardenosa, about two leagues from Avila, which had so recently been the theatre of his glory. His sudden death was imputed, in the usual suspicious temper of that corrupt age, to poison, supposed to have been conveyed to him in a trout, on which he dined the day preceding. Others attributed it to the plague, which had followed in the train of evils, that desolated this unhappy ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... posterity was the fair Hortense de Beauharnais, who in her son, Napoleon III., seated an offshoot of Canada upon the imperial throne of France long after the abandonment of their ancient colony by the corrupt House ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... at Cambridge was to get rid of the inefficient and the corrupt. Washington had never any belief in a militia army. From his earliest days as a soldier he had favored conscription, even in free Virginia. He had then found quite ineffective the "whooping, holloing gentlemen soldiers" of the volunteer force of the colony among whom "every individual has his ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong

... equality. In religion there was both agreement and divergence. The country, in spite of Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists, believed itself to be fervently Catholic; but its ideal of Catholicism was of a reformed and regenerated type; while that maintained by the government was corrupt and lifeless in high places. The country wanted provincial councils, resident ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... decrease in the church of vital piety. A philosophizing spirit among the higher, and a wild monkish superstition among the lower orders, fast took the place in the third century of the faith and humility of the first Christians. Many of the clergy became very corrupt, and excessively ambitious. In consequence of this, there was an awful deflection of Christianity.' Milner's Church History says: 'And if the faith of Christ was so much declined (and its decayed ...
— Around Old Bethany • Robert Lee Berry

... Supreme Court shall be the final and only interpreter of its meaning. What says the Supreme Court? That this clause does relate to slaves, and order their return. All the other courts concur in this opinion. But, say some, the courts are corrupt on this question. Let us appeal to the people. Nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand answer, that the courts have construed it rightly, and almost as many cheerfully support it. If the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... where too they would have wider opportunities of, doing good by the silent influence of example. "In these critical times," said the holy Foundress, "let us place models of virtue in the midst of the corrupt world itself, and oppose living barriers to the ravages of heresy and the inroads of vice." The Sisters were to continue to meet at their oratory for spiritual exercises, conferences, and necessary business arrangements; their dress was to be dark in colour ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"

... mingling with the crowd, and "spotting" the most turbulent, for the purpose of refusing to grant them a license, when next they applied. He went upon the principle that a few agitators were sufficient to corrupt the morals of all the miners in Ballarat, and to get them to leave for other parts ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... to become Lord Archibald's confidant and love-messenger, and bearer of nosegays and billets doux, and singer of little French songs. He was only twenty, and thought of such things as jokes; he had lived among some of the pleasantest, best-bred, and most corrupt people in London. ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... the Welsh form of the word, even as given us in the very ancient Latin Welsh tract ascribed to Nennius, is 'Caer' or 'Kair;' and there is every reason to believe that the Celtic cathir or the Latin castrum had been already worn down into this corrupt form at least as early as the days of the first English colonisation of Britain. Indeed I shall show ground hereafter for believing that that form survives even now in one or two parts of Teutonic England. But if this be so, it is quite clear that ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen

... evil of foreign customs is to be incorporated into American society, if foul freedom of manners is to defile our pure freedom of life, if the robes of our refinement are to be white only when relieved against the dark background revealed by polluted stage of a corrupt metropolis, on you will fall the burden of the consequences. Believe ME, for your weal and mine are one. Your glory is my glory. Your degradation is mine. There are honeyed words whose very essence is insult. ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... developed. They ran with pus. So terrible was the stench that few would stay by him. The women fled the room in terror, driven away by the running stream of physical corruption, the continual babble of lewdness from the corrupt mind. He soon noted their absence. Kibei, attended by the sturdy and faithful Kakusuke, remained to nurse him. Suddenly said Kwaiba—"O'Hana, the harlot of Reigan; this Kwaiba would have talk and dalliance with her. Summon her hither. Let wine ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... distant one from another about an Inch; for if they should touch one another, the Timber would heat and corrupt. ...
— An Abridgment of the Architecture of Vitruvius - Containing a System of the Whole Works of that Author • Vitruvius

... never comes unless extorted. But I can be satisfied on more easy terms: if I happen to please the more moderate sort, I shall be sure of an honest party, and, in all probability, of the best judges; for the least concerned are commonly the least corrupt. And I confess I have laid in for those, by rebating the satire (where justice would allow it), from carrying too sharp an edge. They who can criticise so weakly as to imagine I have done my worst, may be convinced, at their own cost, that I can write severely, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... stones lay thick amid the rank grass. And in the lower corner, where the old turf-wall had sunk into an inconspicuous mound, there stood a mighty tree, all solitary, for its fellows had long before disappeared, and so hollow-hearted in its corrupt old age, that though it still threw out every season a mighty expanse of foliage, I was able to creep into a little chamber in its trunk, from which I could look out through circular openings where boughs once had been, and listen, when a sudden shower ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... virtue; but had been enabled to venerate good morals from his youth. When he first came to Edinburgh to follow out his profession, some of his schoolfellows, who, like him, had come to reside in Edinburgh, attempted to unhinge his principles, and corrupt his morals; but when they found him resolute, and unshaken in his virtuous dispositions, they gave up the attempt; but, instead of abandoning him altogether, they thought the more of him, and honored ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... sacrificing the truth and the approval of God, in order to form an unlawful alliance with the world. The message of Revelation 14, announcing the fall of Babylon, must apply to religious bodies that were once pure and have become corrupt. Since this message follows the warning of the judgment, it must be given in the last days; therefore it cannot refer to the Roman Church alone, for that church has been in a fallen condition for many centuries. Furthermore, in the eighteenth ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... until they are decomposed, great injury follows, since the fluid portions are absorbed, conveyed into the blood, and, of necessity, corrupt it with their impurities. In this way, constipation may be the source of general derangement, but such disorder is seldom attributed to the torpid state of this intestine. There is little doubt but that ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... imperial Parliament to amend their origin, which is bribery; to cleanse their consciences, which are corrupt; to throw off their disguise, which is hypocrisy; to break off with their false allies, who are the saints; and finally, to banish from among them the purchased rogues, who ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... begin, it seems, with concealing from our landlord, or our opulent neighbour, our political determinations; and so his corrupt influence will be broken, and the humblest individual will be safe in doing that which his honest and unbiased feelings ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... purchased, George III possessed a considerable number of enthusiastic and conscientious supporters. The country squires and clergy who believed in the Anglican Church and looked with distrust upon the power of corrupt Whig politicians in Parliament, were quite willing that a painstaking and gentlemanly monarch should do his own ruling. Such persons formed the backbone of the Tory party and sometimes called themselves the "king's friends." With their support and by means of a liberal use ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... and leaves an imperishable recollection of its brilliancy.... I have often held him up as an example to be followed of scrupulous exactness, and of a probity, I fear, alas! too uncompromising in these corrupt times." ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... less than three months, not only was the trouble successfully removed, but the important bills for disfranchising revenue officers and excluding contractors from the House of Commons were carried, and a tremendous blow was thus struck at the corrupt influence of the crown upon elections. Burke's great scheme of economical reform was also put into operation, cutting down the pension list and diminishing the secret service fund, and thus destroying many sources of corruption. ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... Horatio, sailed this week for Sierra Leone. Among other supernumeraries sent in her, were a serjeant and two privates of the Royal African Corps. The conduct of these men was so notoriously bad, that Captain Owen apprehended their example would corrupt the black soldiers with whom they were associated. I cannot avoid again calling in question the policy of our Government in sending out condemned soldiers to the Colonial African Corps; for nothing tends more to degrade ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... speeches and proclamations. These loud accusers of the pedantry of James were little aware that the king has expressed himself with energy and distinctness on this very topic. His majesty cautions Prince Henry against the use of any "corrupt leide, as book-language, and pen-and-inkhorn termes, and, least of all, nignard and effeminate ones." One passage may be given entire as completely refuting a charge so general, yet so unfounded. "I would also advise you to write in your own language, for there is nothing ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... elsewhere, seeking pleasure instead of doing God service. It is not considered disreputable to take fee after fee to uphold injustice, to plead against innocence, to pervert truth, and to aid the devil. It is not considered disreputable to gamble on the Stock Exchange, or to corrupt the honesty of electors by bribes, for doing which the penalty attached is equal to that decreed to the offence of which I am guilty. All these, and much more, are not considered disreputable; yet by all these are the moral bonds of society loosened, while ...
— The Three Cutters • Captain Frederick Marryat

... days of degenerated citizenship, when the rising tide of gold floats the corrupt millionnaire and syndicate's agent into the Senate. The senator's toga then wrapped the shoulders of our greatest men. No bonanza agents—huge moral deformities of heaped-up gold—were made senatorial hunchbacks by ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... it can be safely overlooked. Moreover, as the settlement of the finances was one of the objects of my stay in those parts—and I seldom had the opportunity of checking the statements made to me by the farmers and lessees of the taxes, the receivers, gatherers, and, in a word, all the corrupt class that imparts such views of a province as suit its interests—I was glad to learn anything that threw light on the real condition of the country: the more, as I had to receive at Vitre a deputation of the notables and officials ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman

... acted without malice, or any corrupt motive, and in accordance with their best judgments, and in perfect good faith, it was error to charge that that was ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous

... intimate contact. But it was accomplished at length by the exercise of almost superhuman 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 ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood

... wife, and never by any chance distrusts the girl who is to become his wife; and just the same may be said of the German of the better classes. In both countries you will find sections of society above and below where morals are lax and manners corrupt. German professors write sketches of London in which our busy grimy city is held up to a virtuous Germania as the modern Sodom and Gomorrah; and the Continental Anglophobe likes nothing better than to entertain you with pictures of our decadent society, pictures that really ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... to advance the glory and authority of God's Word. Every tittle of it is greater than heaven and earth. Christian charity and unity have nothing to do with the Word of God. We are bold to curse and condemn all men who in the least point corrupt the Word of God, "for a little leaven ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther

... of a corrupt age is the lack of respect children have for parents. This is largely owing to the neglect of teachers. I am heartily thankful I was taught to say 'Yes Ma'am, and 'No, ma'am,' 'Yes, Sir, and No, Sir.' ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation

... last, go forth companionless, And the days darken round me, and the years, Among new men, strange faces, other minds." And slowly answered Arthur from the barge: "The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me? I have lived my life, and that which I have done May He within himself make pure! but thou, If thou shouldst never see my face again, Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... necessity of the day, but there is no spirit of government in their acts. The military changes that have taken place disgust the troops, and cause the most deserving officers to resign; a seditious flame has sprung up in the very bosom of the Parliaments; you seek to corrupt them, and the remedy is worse than the disease. It is introducing vice into the sanctuary of justice, and gangrene into the vital parts of the commonwealth. Would a corrupted Parliament have braved the fury of the League, in order to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... vapors rise, and in the midst of the blue vapors the figure of the still sleeping Kundry is seen. She wakes, trembling violently; she knows she is again under the spell she abhors—the spell to do evil, the mission to corrupt. With a shuddering scream she stands before her tormentor, denying his power, loathing to return to her vile mission, yet returning, as with a bitter cry ...
— Parsifal - Story and Analysis of Wagner's Great Opera • H. R. Haweis

... do with the cloud that had come over his features; though not for any qualms of conscience for the murders he may have committed or hired others to commit. More likely a fear that he himself might some day meet a similar fate; like all despots he dreaded the steel of the assassin. By his corrupt administration, he had encouraged bravoism till it had become a dangerous element in the social life of his country—almost an institution—and it was but natural he should fear the bravo's blade ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... if the natural man renounces whoredoms, still his spirit does not renounce them; and thus, although it seems to himself that he is chaste by such renunciation, yet nevertheless unchastity lies inwardly concealed like corrupt matter in a wound only outwardly healed. That conjugial love is according to the state of the church with man, may be seen above n. 130. More on this subject may be seen in the exposition ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... is so corrupt that you cannot conceive of an honest friendship, even between near relations. You fill me with repulsion—I measured the depth of your degeneracy at Pisa. That is why I left you. I wanted to breathe in an uninfected atmosphere. My cousin is a person of remarkable intellectual powers, of ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... the autobiography of a young English girl, thrown by her father, a man of high birth, but worthless character, into the vicious influences of corrupt English and French society. The story is one of a constant struggle between these base examples on the one hand, and a strong sense of right and justice on the other. The plot is original and quite elaborate, and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... Eleonora of old, through Emily's letters, and had no doubt of her rectitude, constancy, and deep principle, though she was at the present time petrified by constant antagonism to such untruthfulness as, where it cannot corrupt, almost always hardens those who come in contact with it. And this cruel idea of self- sacrifice was, no ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... temperance, and He expects him to be sober for the future. If He brings back one who has sinned through impurity, it is to chastity and modesty. This is what S. Paul means when he says, "Put off concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour. Let him that stole steal no more, let no corrupt conversation proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying. ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould

... of luxury is toward demoralization. Rome never became dissipated and corrupt until her citizens became wealthy, and adopted luxurious modes of living. Nothing is much more conducive to sound morals than full occupation of the mind with useful labor. Fashionable idleness is a foe to ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... those who embrace error. The vice does not lie in assenting to the proofs they see; but in being blind to many of the proofs that offer. So that, though our erroneous opinions be involuntary when formed, yet as we have been wilfully corrupt, or very negligent in forming them, we deserve punishment for our vice, or contempt for our folly.' My wife now kept up the conversation, though not the argument: she observed, that several very prudent men of our acquaintance were free-thinkers, and ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith

... language to the Roman See, but, in the words of the Greek historian, about 200 bishops who had come to Heraclea from various parts had to separate without doing anything, "having been deluded by the lawless emperor and Timotheus, bishop of Constantinople".[98] The Pope's legates he tried to corrupt; when that did not succeed, he dismissed them in disgrace, and sent the Pope an insolent letter, in which he said he desisted from any requests to him, as reason forbade to throw away prayers on those who would listen to nothing, and while he might submit ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies

... of the League was Henri, Duc de Guise the second, "Balafre," who had won that title in fighting against the German reiters the year before, when they entered France under Condo. He certainly hoped at this time to succeed to the throne of France, either by deposing the corrupt and feeble Henri III., "as Pippin dealt with Hilderik," or by seizing the throne, when the King's debaucheries should have brought him to the grave. The Catholics of the more advanced type, and specially the Jesuits, now in the first flush ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... very little that was new in it, and more that was untrue, and advised him not to publish the paper. My conviction that Shakespeare was not abnormally vicious, and that the first series of Sonnets proved snobbishness and toadying and not corrupt passion, seemed to Oscar ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... The calm question sank into his mind as might a stone into a troubled pool, and the ripples of its passing changed an idea or two. "I wish that you might see Homeport. Perhaps then it would be easier for you to understand. No, your knowledge is not corrupt, it would not carry with it the same seeds of disaster as that of Those Others. But it would be too easy for us to accept, to walk a softer road, to forget what we have so far won. Just ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton

... 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 ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various

... this speech seems corrupt; and if accurately printed,—that is, if the same in all the prior editions,—irremediable but by bold conjecture. "Till my tackle," should be, ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... Lisbon and spent six days which, in a journal privately issued afterwards, they described as of "unique interest." Richard had audiences with ministers, and foretold a crisis at no distant date, "the foundations of government being incurably corrupt. Yet how blame, etc."; while Clarissa inspected the royal stables, and took several snapshots showing men now exiled and windows now broken. Among other things she photographed Fielding's grave, and let loose a small bird which some ruffian ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... greater noise than usual, or some of those who are present should laugh at us, we are disturbed. Philosopher, where are the things which you were talking about? Whence did you produce and utter them? From the lips, and thence only. Why then do you corrupt the aids provided by others? Why do you treat the weightiest matters as if you were playing a game of dice? For it is one thing to lay up bread and wine as in a storehouse, and another thing to eat. That which has been eaten, is digested, ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus

... why Adam lost Paradise is that he allowed Eve to corrupt him. And never did the Lord permit him to regain it. For who is worthy to return to the gates of Paradise? Not a ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... with a much smaller population, was what it is now; everything was taxed, and wages were very low. But what was most galling was the fact that the misery, the taxes, and the debt had been accumulated, not by the will of the people, but by a corrupt House of Commons, the property of borough-mongers, for the sake of supporting the Bourbons directly, but indirectly and chiefly the House of Hanover and the hated aristocracy. There was also a scandalous list of jobs and ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford

... historical of the Teutonic tribes,—had acquired some knowledge of these arts from mixing with their conquerors, they invaded the Roman territories. The hardy habits, the steady perseverance, the better faith of the enduring Goth rendered him too formidable an enemy for the corrupt Roman, who was more inclined to purchase the subjection of his enemy, than to go through the suffering necessary to secure it. The conquest of the Romans gave to the Goths the Christian religion as it was then existing in Italy; ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... rejoice in its prosperity. I am distressed when calamity overtakes it—I never lose faith in its ultimate success. The heart of the city is sound. It has always been sound, even in the early days when a ring of corrupt adventurers would have salted the city of the blessed herb with an unsavory reputation, but for the care of staunch and courageous protectors at the ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various

... for a period wherein few lived to old age; she had long outlived her husband, and had seen the funerals of nearly all her children. The greater part even of her earthly treasures were already safe where moth and rust corrupt not, and her own feeling of earnest longing to rejoin them grew daily stronger. It was for the daughter's sake alone that she cared to live now; the daughter to whom men had left only God and that mother. A new lesson was now to be taught to ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... whole race were transported at once from their native shores in the sky to the convict land of this world. Sometimes the descent was attributed to the fresh fault of each individual, and was thought to be constantly happening. A soul tainted with impure desire, drawn downwards by corrupt material gravitation, hovering over the fumes of matter, inhaling the effluvia of vice, grew infected with carnal longings and contagions, became fouled and clogged with gross vapors and steams, and finally fell into a body and ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... of Eugenics, and an essential part of Christian morality. On this point he asserts: "We do wish to remind our orthodox and conservative friends that the Sermon on the Mount contains some admirably clear and unmistakable eugenic precepts. 'Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit, neither can a good tree bring forth evil fruit. Every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.' We wish to apply these words not only to the actions of individuals, which spring ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger

... Sarrasin alone explained that it was a revolution against reforms too enlightened and too advanced—a revolution of corruption against healthy civilisation and purity—of stagnation against progress—of the system comfortable to corrupt judges and to wealthy suitors, and against judicial integrity. It was pointed out in Captain Sarrasin's paper that this was the sort of revolution which had succeeded for the moment in turning out the ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy

... pinned down against a beer-stained card-table. He was converting her into something useless and broken, into something that could no longer come between him and his ends. He was completely and finally humiliating her. He was breaking her. He was converting her into something corrupt. . . . Then his pendulous throat choked with a falsetto gasp of wonder. ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer

... there is also the question, so often raised by Mr. Pelton, that under the Hamilton machine, the politics, and particularly the enforcement of the laws, in this state, are unbelievably corrupt, but I wonder—" ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire

... for him and effectuated in him thereby, may know who alone should wear the crown and have all the glory; what, I say, will such a soul see in another gospel (calculated to the meridian of the natural, crooked, and corrupt temper of proud men, who is soon made vain of nothing, which, instead of bringing a sinner, fallen from God through pride, back again to the enjoyment of him, through a Mediator, doth but foster that innate plague and rebellion, ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... which is what changes noise into music. Don't stand and argue, but go away. It is no pleasure to me to people the island with corpses. They corrupt the air, ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay

... father being aduertised, returned into England, where he taried not long, but passed ouer againe into Normandie, hauing his said sonne in his companie, [Sidenote: An. Reg. 16. 1170.] meaning thereby to remoue him from the companie of those that were verie like to corrupt this nature, and frame the same to all lewdnesse: for he knew that —— commercia turpia sanctos Corrumpunt mores: multi hoc periere veneno, Labimur in vitium & facil ad ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (5 of 12) - Henrie the Second • Raphael Holinshed

... newspaper writers know, or how little they think you know. When the War of Independence was begun in America, ninety years ago, there were no representatives there at all. The question then was, whether a Ministry in Downing-street, and a corrupt and borough- mongering Parliament, should continue to impose taxes upon three millions of English subjects, who had left their native shores and established themselves in North America. But now the question ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... instances.—The general motives to play are avarice, joined with a fraudulent intention explicit or implicit, ostentation of skill, and spleen, through the want of some serious, useful occupation. And as this practice arises from such corrupt sources, so it has a tendency to increase them; and indeed may be considered as an express method of begetting and inculcating self-interest, ill will, envy, and the like. For by gaming a man learns to pursue his own interest ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... to city became an approved investment of genuine capital, notwithstanding the frightful frauds and extortion to which the projectors were exposed in a Parliament which, under a new temptation, showed itself as corrupt and greedy as any nation or age ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... the side, and there I saw the old man standing up reverently, with his hat in one hand, and a bag, apparently full of money in the other. Undoubtedly, the simple yeoman had supposed that money could either corrupt the captain, or buy off the servitude of his guilty son. It was a fine old countenance, down the sides of which that silver hair hung so patriarchally and gracefully; and there that poor old man stood, bowing in his wretchedness and his bereavement, with his money extended, to every ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... the friends of the administration were an aristocratic and corrupt faction, who, from a desire to introduce monarchy, were hostile to France, and under the influence of Britain; that they sought every occasion to increase expense, to augment debt, to multiply the public ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... exchange. Prospects of an income from the banks led the legislature of 1836 to abolish all taxation for state purposes. This was hardly done, however, before the panic of 1837 wiped out a large portion of the banks' assets; next came revelations of grossly careless and even of corrupt management, and in 1843 the banks were placed in liquidation. After disposing of all their available assets, the state assumed the remaining liabilities, for which it had pledged its faith and credit, and these form a part ($3,445,000) of its ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... imprisonment of the offender, rather than the seizure of his goods—though both will serve the same purpose—because they who assert the purest right, and consequently are most dangerous to a corrupt State, commonly have not spent much time in accumulating property. To such the State renders comparatively small service, and a slight tax is wont to appear exorbitant, particularly if they are obliged to earn it by special labor with their hands. If there were one who lived wholly ...
— On the Duty of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... any part of the field, and the field is now a hundred times vaster than it was. Now, it is extremely important that as fast as errors arise they should be pointed out, and rooted up without delay, and before they can breed a pestilence and corrupt a whole neighbourhood. But the complicated machinery of a great Ecumenical Council, which involves prolonged preparation, considerable expense, and a temporary dislocation in almost every diocese throughout the world, is too cumbersome and slow to be called into ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan

... of the Jubilee festivities soon gave way to a sterner phase of empire. For years South Africa had been in ferment owing to the conflicting interests of narrow, fanatical, often corrupt Boer leaders, greedy Anglo-Jewish mining magnates, and British statesmen-Rhodes, Milner, Chamberlain—dominated by the imperial idea and eager for an "all-red" South Africa. Eventually an impasse was reached ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton

... with the amount of legislation that existed with which to put it down. There were a guilty silence and a guilty ignorance on the part of the better elements of Christian society at Singapore and Hong Kong, which could be played upon by treacherous, corrupt officials by the flimsy device of calling the ravishing of native women "protection," and the most brazen forms of slavery "servitude." To this extent the individual Christians of these colonies are in many cases ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell

... Fu was good-natured but dissipated and corrupt. He called upon us the evening of our arrival and almost immediately asked if we had any shotgun cartridges. He remarked that he had a gun but no shells, and as we did not offer to give him any he continued to hint broadly at ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews

... my many obligations. 'Avails' is good old English, and the vails of Sir Joshua Reynolds's porter are famous. Averse from, averse to, and in connection with them the English vulgarism 'different to;' the corrupt use of to in these cases, as well as in the Yankee 'he lives to Salem,' 'to home,' and others, must be a very old one, for in the one case it plainly arose from confounding the two French prepositions a, (from Latin ad and ab), and in the other from translating the first of them. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... you show me how to correct this hopelessly corrupt passage of Graidiocolosyrtus Tabenniticus, on the cause why crocodiles ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley

... of course that we're brigands," said Obed. "It's what anybody would take us for. Evil looks corrupt good intentions." ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler

... dedicatory epistle, is unsigned, but appears to have been written by Campion. "What epigrams are in poetry," it begins, "the same are airs in music: then in their chief perfection when they are short and well seasoned. But to clog a light song with a long preludium is to corrupt the nature of it. Many rests in music were invented either for necessity of the fugue, or granted as an harmonical licence in songs of many parts; but in airs I find no use they have, unless it be to make a vulgar and trivial modulation seem to the ignorant strange, and ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various

... officer to truly depose and testify, did willfully, knowingly and feloniously and contrary to his said oath, depose and state material matters which were not true and which he did not then believe to be true, and thereby did commit willful and corrupt perjury against the peace of the United States and their dignity and contrary to the form of the statute of the United States in such cases made ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... ministers of state, who gave us law, In corners, with selected friends, withdraw: There, in deaf murmurs, solemnly are wise; Whispering, like winds, ere hurricanes arise. The most corrupt are most obsequious grown, And those they scorned, officiously ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... Malthus, "you do not know the man: the drollest fellow! What stories! What cynicism! He knows life to admiration and, between ourselves, is probably the most corrupt ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... should not look to Plato's Republic, for that Utopia is avowedly the ideal only for fallen and corrupt states, since luxury and injustice, we are told, first necessitated war, and the guiding idea of all the Platonic regimen is military efficiency. Aristocracy finds a more ideal expression in theism; for theism imagines the values of existence to be divided into two unequal ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... merest 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

... emissaries are having among the ignorant, but the merchant class has about got to the point of asking foreign intervention to straighten things out—first to loosen the clutch of Japan, and then, or at the same time, for it's the two sides of the same thing, overthrow the corrupt military clique that now governs China and sells it out. It's a wonderful job for a League of Nations—if only by any chance there is a league, which looks ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey

... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... French, &c. Behind one wall the bodies of all who perished in the massacres in Paris were immured. They were brought in carts at night and thrown in, and there they rest, festering not in their shrouds but in clothes. Such a mass of corrupt flesh would soon have infested all the vaults, so ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley

... thanked be God," said the bishops in 1529, "there hath no notable person fallen in our time;" no chief priest, chief ruler, or learned Pharisee—not one. "Truth it is that certain apostate friars and monks, lewd priests, bankrupt merchants, vagabonds and lewd idle fellows of corrupt nature, have embraced the abominable and erroneous opinions lately sprung in Germany, and by them have been some seduced in simplicity and ignorance. Against these, if judgment have been exercised according ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... afraid he will hurt any of us," said the captain, "and I am sure he will not corrupt the negroes. They hate him. It is ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... currency was entrusted to an establishment in the United States, when fourteen millions of dollars were printed in addition to the amount authorized! All were duly receipted for and signed by corrupt Spanish officials, who coolly divided these millions among themselves! The Captain-General of Cuba during whose administration this financial stroke was accomplished came to the island a poor man, and returned to Spain in two years possessed ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... in the way of seemingly indifferent amusements. Some inward standard Marius seemed to detect there (though wholly unable to estimate its nature) of distinction, selection, refusal, amid the various elements of the fervid and corrupt life across which they were moving together:—some secret, constraining motive, ever on the alert at eye and ear, which carried him through Rome as under a charm, so that Marius could not but think ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater

... younger Robespierre, in a letter intended to be shown, "but were he my father and had aimed at tyranny, I would have stabbed him myself." On returning to Paris, after having knocked at several doors, he takes Barras for a patron. Barras, the most brazen of the corrupt, Barras, who has overthrown and contrived the death of his two former protectors.[1127] Among the contending parties and fanaticisms which succeed each other he keeps cool and free to dispose of himself as he pleases, indifferent to every ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... them when they went out fishing, sometimes with Tom, and sometimes alone, and soon became a very expert boat sailor. One thing is very certain, that his associates did Jack no good. We know from Scripture that "Evil communications corrupt good manners," and, though undeservedly, he got the character of being a wild lad, likely some day to ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston

... what he said. Many changes corrupt loyalty, and of evil times evil men are the natural fruit. In nearly all respects Asgill was as unscrupulous a man as the time in which he lived and the class from which he sprang could show. Following ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman

... ill-gotten gains. This bill was briskly pushed through the earlier stages; suddenly the proceedings were arrested by adjournment, and the measure fell to the ground. The rumour of the day attributed Rumbold's escape to the corrupt assistance of Rigby; who, in 1782, found himself, by Lord North's retirement, deprived of his place in the Pay Office, and called upon to refund a large amount of public moneys unaccounted for. In this strait, Rigby was believed to have had recourse to Rumbold. Their acquaintance ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... unhappy parents until he shall be old enough to judge for himself. In any case, I should wish him not to think of France. Let him content himself in America. It is done. In France there is no redress. The government is hopelessly corrupt, and there is no possibility of wrong being righted. Besides, the laws against the Huguenots are in full force, and he can never live with his mother's enemies. I revere the sacred memory of my Huguenot wife, and curse the knaves and ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille

... saying," he said, "that the Prime Minister has made the greatest speech of his life. Peroration and loud and prolonged cheers. Corrupt financiers and heroic peasants. We will not desert ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton

... inevitable law that when men do some good to others, credit is given them for that good in the Book of Life. This wealth of good deeds may accumulate until one may become a veritable millionaire; and this treasure can never be put to an unrighteous use; moth can not corrupt it, nor thieves break through ...
— Added Upon - A Story • Nephi Anderson

... to his trust is the worst thing about it. This is a queer world, my darling, in which we live. I never knew much about it until lately. It is not so at home, or was not when I was a boy—but here you can take away a man's character, rob him of his home, corrupt his children. You can break your wife's heart, be cruel, revengeful; you can lie and be tricky, and no law can touch you—in fact, you are still a respectable citizen. But if you take a dollar-bill out of another man's cash drawer, you are sent ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith

... a corrupt community drawn by Curran in his description of the public pests of his day—"remaining at the bottom like drowned bodies while soundness remained in them, but rising only as they rotted, and floating only from the buoyancy of corruption"—seems, ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... of the persecution were convincing proof of the progress of the reformation. A corrupt priesthood dreaded its tendency to deprive them of their sinful gains. Certain persons no longer enjoyed a monopoly of Armenian printing. Education ceased to be exclusively in the hands of a few bankers. And the popularity of Hohannes ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson

... civil servants of the Government, to dismiss this subject without declaring my dissent from the severe and almost indiscriminate censure with which they have been recently assailed. That they are as a class indolent, inefficient, and corrupt is a statement which has been often made and widely credited; but when the extent, variety, delicacy, and importance of their duties are considered the great majority of the employees of the Government are, in my judgment, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson

... opposed to these, there are the settlements of the Portuguese, rotten and corrupt, and the German settlements of Dar Es Salaam and Tanga which have still to prove their right to exist. Outwardly, to the eye, they are model settlements. Dar Es Salaam, in particular, is a beautiful and perfectly appointed ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis

... little hopes of a peace, their demands being so high as we shall never grant, and could tell me that we shall keep no fleete abroad this year, but only squadrons. And, among other things, that my Lord Bellasses, he believes, will lose his command of Tangier by his corrupt covetous ways of.endeavouring to sell his command, which I am glad [of], for he is a man of no worth in the world but compliment. So to the 'Change, and there bought 32s. worth of things for Mrs. Knipp, my Valentine, which is pretty to see how my wife is come ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... lacked knowledge of England. He began by dismissing William Huskisson from his Cabinet, who was not only its ablest member, but perhaps the single man among the Tories who thoroughly comprehended the industrial age. Huskisson's issue was that the franchise of the intolerably corrupt East Retford should be given to Leeds or Manchester. Having got rid of Huskisson, the Duke declared imperiously that he would concede nothing to the disfranchised industrial magnates, nor to the vast cities in which they lived. A dissolution ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams

... in the highest and best schools was never overlooked or forgotten. She never, like many writers of religious fiction, caught the spirit of sensationalism that is in the air, or sought for effects in unhealthy portraiture, corrupt ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... borderland between friendship and love; and insulted into the bargain by a chit of a mother-woman, with no more brains and imagination than a sparrow! But for me, at any rate, there can be no compromise. I do not choose to profane the sanctuary of my soul, to corrupt my Art, by becoming a mere breadwinner, a slave of the hearth-rug, and the tea-cup—in fact, the property of a woman. That's what it amounts to. And I doubt if any of us relish the position when it comes to the point. Even that devoted husband of yours, after waiting ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... pure and "unspotted from the world." And is it not true that men can hold fast their crown, that no man take it from them, if only they will make use of the grace of God? God has His faithful witnesses in every place, in every age, no matter how corrupt. There are the "seven thousand" who do not bow the kneel to Baal, there are the faithful "few names" even in Sardis who do not defile their garments with the world. San Francisco had them in those days of special temptation, ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey

... with customers' servants. Obviously he got on well with them; and one might be quite certain that he did not offer any material compliments that were either traditionally illegitimate or open in the smallest degree to a suspicion of corrupt purpose. ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... 1, that year, after prolonged and warm debates, and by close votes in House and Senate. Two years afterwards it was discovered that bribery had been employed in securing the passage of that act; the charge being that a million dollars had been spent by a corrupt lobby in pushing the bill through.[HG] Upon these disclosures, and because the company had failed to fulfil its conditions, Congress, by act of March 3, 1875, abrogated the contract.[HH] In 1877 the first contract with the Pacific Mail for the Japan and China service, ...
— Manual of Ship Subsidies • Edwin M. Bacon

... of some description was necessary, for Richard was neither to go to school nor to college. Sir Austin considered that the schools were corrupt, and maintained that young lads might by parental vigilance be kept pretty secure from the Serpent until Eve sided with him: a period that might be deferred, he said. He had a system of education for his son. How it worked we ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... fellow-townsman, must know the interests of the town better than strangers, upright public principles, never fawn on governments, would see that the people had their rights, and cut down army, navy, and all other jobs of a corrupt aristocracy, etc. Randal Leslie's proposer, a captain on half-pay, undertook a long defence of army and navy, from the unpatriotic aspersions of the preceding speakers, which defence diverted him from the due praise of Randal, until cries of "Cut it short," recalled him ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... however brief, is more trustworthy and more convincing, with regard to the usage of his own time, than whole pages of testimony in a writer like Priscian who wrote in the sixth century, by which period the language had become corrupt. ...
— Latin Pronunciation - A Short Exposition of the Roman Method • Harry Thurston Peck

... the appointment of Clay as Secretary of State. It was a mistake, because it gave the Jackson men a chance to assert that there had been a "deal" between Adams and Clay. They called Clay the "Judas of the West." They said that the "will of the people" had been defeated by a "corrupt bargain." These charges were repeated over and over again until many people really began to think that there must be some reason for them. The Jackson men also most unjustly accused Adams of stealing the nation's money. The British government seized the ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing

... of St. Salvator's College chapel and on the Cathedral, and did much scathe, though, during the first three weeks of the siege, the garrison "had many prosperous chances." Meanwhile Knox prophesied the defeat of his associates, because of "their corrupt life." They had robbed and ravished, and were probably demoralised by Knox's prophecies. On the last day of July the castle surrendered. {24} Knox adds that his friends would deal with France alone, as "Scottish men had ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... Cola di Rienzi was dreaming of founding on the rickety enthusiasm of the corrupt population of Rome a new State which was to comprise all Italy. By the side of rulers such as those whom we have described, he seems no better than a poor ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... me moderate my pace. One day I took the Mercure de France, and as I walked and read, I came to the following question proposed by the academy of Dijon, for the premium of the ensuing year: Has the progress of sciences and arts contributed to corrupt ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various

... professed themselves converts. The multitude followed their example. The Brahminical church was promptly disestablished and disendowed, and more injustice was committed in the name of the new and purified religion in one day than the old corrupt one had occasioned in ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... Nevertheless, the eccentric young man had unmistakably threatened them. While Varney had been more interested by the man, personally, than by his whimsical menaces, the editor's conversation could certainly not be called reassuring. Smith owned a corrupt newspaper; he was a clever man and, by his own confession, an unscrupulous one, bought body and soul by the local freebooters; and if he thought the headlong intruder Maginnis important enough to warrant it, there were presumably no lengths ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... domestic missionary society to build up waste places in Connecticut. His sermon "Reformation of Morals practicable and desirable" warned against "profane and profligate men of corrupt minds and to every ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... as much when I took a good look at your face. Will you ask your father when you go home whether the Volunteers won liberty for Irishmen, and what he thinks of the independence of an Irish Parliament filled with placemen and the nominees of a corrupt aristocracy?" ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham

... stupidity and credulity;— stupidity and credulity which formed excellent ground for the working of miracles, whether such miracles were wrought in the name of Osiris or Christ. Mokanna, the "Veiled Prophet," while corrupt to the core with unnameable vices, had managed in his time to delude the people into thinking him a holy man; and,—without any adequate reason for his assumption,—the Archbishop had certainly prepared himself ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... rank themselves amongst Atheists, and impudently defend and propagate that ridiculous Opinion of the Eternity of the World, and a fatal invincible Chain of Things, which, it seems, is now most commonly made use of to destroy the Faith, as our lewd Plays are to corrupt the Morals of the Nation: An Opinion, big with more Absurdities than Transubstantiation it self, and of far more fatal Consequence, if receiv'd and believ'd: For besides its extremely weakening, if not destroying, the Belief of the Being and Providence of God, ...
— Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry (1700) and the Essay on Heroic Poetry (second edition, 1697) • Samuel Wesley



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