There is nothing that would upset me more than my dad being bribed by the press. It's like, 'Just let them run it, then. Don't you give them ammunition. '
Repeat business or behavior can be bribed. Loyalty has to be earned.
I have never been bribed as a Prime Minister.
Success is the child of drudgery and perseverance. It cannot be coaxed or bribed; pay the price and it is yours.
I believe that almost all politicians are honest. For every bribed alderman there are hundreds of politicians, low paid or not paid at all, doing their level best without thanks or glory to make our system work. If this were not true, we would never have gotten past the thirteen colonies.
Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity than straigthforward and simple integrity in another. A knave would rather quarrel with a brother knave than with a fool, but he would rather avoid a quarrel with one honest man than with both. He can combat a fool by management and address, and he can conquer a knave by temptations. But the honest man is neither to be bamboozled nor bribed.
In Madison's famous formulation in the Federalist, constitutional restrictions on government assume that we "first enable the government to control the governed. " If the public authorities can be outgunned or bribed, the vibrancy of the private sector can be pathological.
Men are more often bribed by their loyalties and ambitions than by money.
More people are bribed by their own money than anybody else's.
