Vices

"But here more slow, where all are slaves to gold, Where looks are merchandise, and smiles are sold."

"Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune, He had not the method of making a fortune."

"A hoarseness caused by swallowing gold and silver."

"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.""

"And ye sail walk in silk attire, And siller hae to spare, Gin ye'll consent to be his bride, Nor think o' Donald mair."

"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."

"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?"

"There is gold for you. Sell me your good report."

"Tis gold Which buys admittance; oft it doth; yea, and 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."

"His sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment."

"Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold."

"No abuse of power has so tarnished the corporate image or shown the need for government legislation as the numerous public revelations of wholesale political and foreign bribery that came to light during the 1970s. These revelations are one of the most sordid chapters in American corporate history. Investigations revealed widespread illegal corporate political contributions and extensive bribery of foreign government officials. When the bribes were large, they significantly distorted the corporation's actual financial picture, thus misleading company stockholders as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the . When U.S. corporations bribe officials of developing countries, they may help to undermine that country's political stability and in some cases contribute to the spread of anti-American feeling. A particularly serious situation develops when pharmaceutical corporations bribe health officials in other countries to obtain permission to sell dangerous drug products."

"Citizens United v. FEC]] violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or being elected president. And the same thing applies to governors, and U.S. Senators and congress members. So, now we’ve just seen a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over... At the present time the incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody that is already in Congress has a great deal more to sell, to an avid contributor."

"'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."

"It would be better if they [rulers] compelled the Jews to work for their living, as they do in parts of Italy, than that, living without occupation, they can grow rich only by usury (solis usuris ditentur)."

"Bartley: Why dost laugh, Frank? Ilford. To see that we and usurers live by the fall of young heirs, as swine by the dropping of acorns."

"Frequently nowadays the use of highly sophisticated computers involves the 'selling' of time on them. In the Middle Ages this practice would have been severely frowned upon by the Church, for one of its main objections to the practice of usury was that it contravened natural law by 'selling time', and in its view time necessarily belongs to all creatures."

"Since they [usurers] sell nothing other than the expectation of money, that is to say, time, they sell days and nights. But the day is the time of clarity, and the night the time of repose. It is, therefore, not just for them to receive eternal light and eternal rest."

"He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor."

"Profitless usurer, why dost thou use So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live? For having traffic with thy self alone, Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive: Then how when nature calls thee to be gone, What acceptable audit canst thou leave?"

"This inhumanity of mercenary commerce is the more notable because it is a fulfilment of the law that the corruption of the best is the worst. … And this is the ultimate lesson which the leader of English intellect meant for us … in the tale of the "Merchant of Venice"; in which the true and incorrupt merchant,—kind and free, beyond every other Shakespearian conception of men,—is opposed to the corrupted merchant, or usurer; the lesson being deepened by the expression of the strange hatred which the corrupted merchant bears to the pure one, mixed with intense scorn."

"Those who devour usury will not stand except as stand one whom the Evil one by his touch Hath driven to madness. That is because they say: "Trade is like usury," but Allah hath permitted trade and forbidden usury. Those who after receiving direction from their Lord, desist, shall be pardoned for the past; their case is for Allah (to judge); but those who repeat (The offence) are companions of the Fire: They will abide therein (for ever)."

"Since those who rule in the city do so because they own a lot, I suppose they're unwilling to enact laws to prevent young people who've had no discipline from spending and wasting their wealth, so that by making loans to them, secured by the young people's property, and then calling those loans in, they themselves become even richer and more honored."

"The true spirit of usury lies in taking an unjust and unreasonable advantage of their fellow creatures."

"Jewish usury was prohibited at common law, but no other."

"By means of the banking system the distribution of capital as a special business, a social function, is taken out of the hands of the private capitalists and usurers. But at the same time, banking and credit thus become the most potent means of driving capitalist production beyond its own limits, and one of the most effective vehicles of crises and swindle."

"Usury lives in the pores of production, as it were, just as the gods of Epicurus lived in the space between the worlds."

"And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back."

"I, who ne'er Went for myself a begging, go a borrowing, And that for others. Borrowing's much the same As begging; just as lending upon usury Is much the same as thieving."

"Among the principal criticisms leveled against the merchants was the charge that their profit implied a mortgage on time, which was supposed to belong to God alone. For example, we have the following remarks of a lector-general of the Franciscan order in the fourteenth century concerning a disputed question: "Question: is a merchant entitled... to demand a greater payment from one who cannot settle his account immediately than from one who can? The answer argued for is no, because in doing so he would be selling time and would be committing usury by selling what does not belong to him." ...The whole of economic life at the dawn of commercial capitalism is here being called into question."

"For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight."

"Usury laws that protected consumers against rapacious lenders existed until 1978. Now they are gone because of a Supreme Court decision. ...[O]ur government has set forth onerous new rules that reward those who prey on the poor. ...These lenders, or their fronts, can now charge rates and impose penalties that were illegal, even criminal, a generation ago."

"To speak of a usurer at the table mars the wine."

"To borrow upon Usury, bringeth on Beggary."

"Jewish usurers bleed the poor to death and grow fat on their substance, and I who live on alms, who feed on the bread of the poor, shall I then be mute before outraged charity? Dogs bark to protect those who feed them, and I, who am feed by the poor, shall I see them robbed of what belongs to them and keep silent?"

"He who lives by usury in this world shall not live in the world to come."

"If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good, makes the bill good, also. The difference between the bond and the bill is the bond lets money brokers collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%, whereas the currency pays nobody but those who contribute directly in some useful way. It is absurd to say that our country can issue $30 million in bonds and not $30 million in currency. Both are promises to pay, but one promise fattens the usurers and the other helps the people."

"There are two sorts of wealth-getting, as I have said; one is a part of household management, the other is retail trade: the former necessary and honorable, while that which consists in exchange is justly censured; for it is unnatural, and a mode by which men gain from one another. The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of an modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural."

"Now what has been said about the Jews is also to be understood about Cahorsins, and anyone else depending upon the depravity of usury."

"Since the Jews may not licitly keep those things which they have extorted from others through usury, the consequence is also that if you [rulers] receive these things from them, neither may you licitly keep them."

"No amount of money given in charity, nothing but the abandonment of this hateful trade, can atone for this great sin against God, Israel and Humanity."

"Where there is usury, there are wars."

"The use of intoxicating drinks as a beverage is as much an infatuation as is the smoking of opium by the Chinese, and the former is quite as destructive to the success of the business man as the latter."

"God tells us men fucking men is a terrible thing, but a father offering his two daughters, vestal virgins no less, to a horde of horny buggers is heroic. Now that's straight. … God destroys the faggots with fire and brimstone. He turns a disobedient wife into salt. But he asks us to idolize drunks who sleep with their daughters or offer them to a horny, unruly mob."

"Among Jews, there is an absence of drunkenness, always a fruitful source of domestic strife and misconduct."

"In the mid nineteenth century, the typical murderer was a drunken illiterate; a hundred years later the typical murderer regards himself as a thinking man."

"Do not be among those who drink too much wine, among those who gorge themselves on meat, for a drunkard and a glutton will come to poverty, and drowsiness will clothe one with rags."

"Wine is a ridiculer, alcohol is unruly; whoever goes astray by them is not wise."

"The prohibition law, written for weaklings and derelicts, those who cannot control their appetites, has divided the nation, like Gaul, into three parts — wets, drys and hypocrites."

"Drunkenness, for example, is temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness."