Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Bribery
And ye sall walk in silk attire,
And siller hae to spare,
Gin ye’ll consent to be his bride,
Nor think o’ Donald mair.
Susanna Blamire—The Siller Crown.
’Tis pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures;
And all are to be sold, if you consider
Their passions, and are dext’rous; some by features
Are brought up, others by a warlike leader;
Some by a place—as tend their years or natures;
The most by ready cash—but all have prices,
From crowns to kicks, according to their vices.
Byron—Don Juan. Canto V. St. 27.
Flowery oratory he [Walpole] despised. He ascribed to the interested views of themselves or their relatives the declarations of pretended patriots, of whom he said, “All those men have their price.”
Coxe—Memoirs of Walpole. Vol. IV. P. 369.
A hoarseness caused by swallowing gold and silver.
Demosthenes, bribed not to speak against Harpalus, he pretended to have lost his voice. Plutarch quotes the accusation as above. Also elsewhere refers to it as the “silver quinsey.”
Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune,
He had not the method of making a fortune.
Gray—On His Own Character.
But here more slow, where all are slaves to gold,
Where looks are merchandise, and smiles are sold.
Samuel Johnson—London. L. 177.
Our supple tribes repress their patriot throats,
And ask no questions but the price of votes.
Samuel Johnson—Vanity of Human Wishes. L. 95.
Alas! the small discredit of a bribe
Scarce hurts the lawyer, but undoes the scribe.
Pope—Epilogue to Satire. Dialogue II. L. 46.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold;
Esteem and love were never to be sold.
Pope—Essay on Man. Ep. IV. L. 187.
Auro pulsa fides, auro venalia jura,
Aurum lex sequitur, mox sine lege pudor.
By gold all good faith has been banished; by gold our rights are abused; the law itself is influenced by gold, and soon there will be an end of every modest restraint.
Propertius—Elegiæ. III. 13. 48.
No mortal thing can bear so high a price,
But that with mortal thing it may be bought.
Sir Walter Raleigh—Love the Only Price of Love.
’Tis gold
Which buys admittance; oft it doth; yea, and makes
Diana’s rangers false themselves, yield up
Their deer to the stand o’ the stealer: and ’tis gold
Which makes the true man kill’d and saves the thief;
Nay, sometimes hangs both thief and true man.
Cymbeline. Act II. Sc. 3. L. 72.
There is gold for you.
Sell me your good report.
Cymbeline. Act II. Sc. 3. L. 87.
What, shall one of us,
That struck the foremost man of all this world
But for supporting robbers, shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes?
Julius Cæsar. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 22.
There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls,
Doing more murders in this loathsome world,
Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.
I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.
Romeo and Juliet. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 80.
Every man has his price.
Sir Robert Walpole—Speech. Nov. or Dec., 1734. according to A. F. Robbins, in Gentleman’s Mag. No. IV, Pp. 589–92. 641–4. Horace Walpole asserts it was attributed to Walpole by his enemies. See Letter, Aug. 26, 1785. Article in Notes and Queries, May 11, 1907. Pp. 367–8, asserts he said: “I know the price of every man in this house except three.” See article in London Times, March 15, 1907, Review of W. H. Craig’s Life of Chesterfield. Phrase in The Bee, Vol. VII. P. 97, attributed to Sir W——m W——m (William Wyndham).
Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
George Washington—Moral Maxims. Virtue and Vice. The Trial of Virtue.