True, I used to see a lot of hope. I saw men tear down the veils behind which the truth had been hidden. But then the same men, when they have power in their hands at last, began to find the veils useful. They made many more. Life has not changed. Only some people have been growing, becoming different, that is all. After a youth spent fighting the white man, why should not the president discover as he grows older that his real desire has been to be like the white governor himself, to live above all the blackness in the big old slave castle?

How horribly rapid everything has been, from the days when men were not ashamed to talk of souls and of suffering and of hope to these low days of smiles that will never again be sly enough to hide the knowledge of betrayal and deceit.

Where God hath a temple, the Devil will have a chapel.

Corruption is like a ball of snow: whence once set a-rolling it must increase.

Countries are like fruit-the worms are always inside.

The scandalous question that hangs over modern government and excites perpetual outrage is about political money and what it buys. What exactly do these contributors get in return for the hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars they funnel to the politicians?

No man is worthy of unlimited reliance-his treason, at best, only waits for sufficient temptation.

The corruption of the age is made up by the particular contribution of every individual man; some contribute treachery, others injustice, irreligion, tyranny, avarice, cruelty, according to their power.

The corruption of every government begins nearly always with that of principles.

There is something in corruption which, like a jaundiced eye, transfers the color of itself to the object it looks upon, and sees everything stained and impure.