"Should look forward to a time, and..." - Quote by Thomas Jefferson
Should look forward to a time, and that not a distant one, when corruption in this, as in the country from which we derive our origin, will have seized the heads of government, and be spread by them through the body of the people; when they will purchase the voices of the people, and make them pay the price.
More by Thomas Jefferson
“Men fight for freedom; then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves.”
“[T]he people seem to have deposited the monarchical and taken up the republican government with as much ease as would have attended their throwing off an old and putting on a new suit of clothes.”
“Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.”
More on Corruption
“Louisiana's spicy, colorful politics have saddled our state with a reputation for tolerating lax ethical standards in government.”
“The question is, why are politicians so eager to be president? What is it about the job that makes it worth revealing, on national television, that you have the ethical standards of a slime-coated piece of industrial waste?”
“At one time or another, almost every politician needs an honest man so badly that, like a ravenous wolf, he breaks into a sheep-fold: not to devour the ram he has stolen, however, but rather to conceal himself behind its wooly back.”
More on Government
“What we seek is the reign of law, based upon the consent of the governed and sustained by the organized opinion of mankind.”
“Withholding of payment of taxes is one of the quickest methods of overthrowing a government.”
“Public money ought to be touched with the most scrupulous consciousness of honor.”