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Bribe   Listen
noun
Bribe  n.  
1.
A gift begged; a present. (Obs.)
2.
A price, reward, gift, or favor bestowed or promised with a view to prevent the judgment or corrupt the conduct of a judge, witness, voter, or other person in a position of trust. "Undue reward for anything against justice is a bribe."
3.
That which seduces; seduction; allurement.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Bribe" Quotes from Famous Books



... 'because—' and it was plain, from the glance in his eyes, that the bribe had engaged all ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... time, and then, after calling for another pint of beer all round, sauntered out, leaving the soldiers to finish it. He saw at once that his only possible plan in the time he had at his command was either to bribe some of the guards, which appeared to him too hazardous a plan to adopt, and not likely to lead to success, or to get at one or other of the people who ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty

... give no assurance of true testimony, and one man hardly expect another to keep faith with him, or to utter his real sentiments, or to be true to any party or to any cause when another approaches him with a bribe; when no one shall expect what he says to be printed without additions, perversions, and misrepresentations; when public misfortunes shall be turned to private profit, the press pander to licentiousness, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... the man would give his daughter to us if we merely offered to take care of her. She is too useful to him. But he might let her come with us if we could pay him a great deal of money besides. At least, if we offered him a bribe he might be influenced to tell us where poor Mollie is. However, there is no use in talking about money. We'll have to do the best we can without it," ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers

... perch and said, 'Come now, Polly; you shall have this nice piece of sugar if you will say 'Pretty Mary.' I had tried hard for ever so long to say it, but somehow my tongue would not twist out the exact words. But I was not pleased with Miss Mary for asking me to say it for a bribe; she ought to have known me better, I thought, and I sat quite silent, determined not ...
— The Cockatoo's Story • Mrs. George Cupples

... Wilmer, with slow incisiveness, "you've accomplished one thing I'd sell my name for. You've got Mary Brinsley bound to you so fast that neither lure nor lash can stir her. I've tried it—tried Paris even, the crudest bribe there is. No good! She ...
— Different Girls • Various

... returned to Paris, where a series of brilliant fetes in honour of the victory of Fontenoy were in preparation. Tournay had surrendered a few days after the battle, the governor of that town having accepted a heavy bribe to open the gates, for the place could have resisted for months, and the allied army were ready to recommence hostilities in ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty

... "Don't bribe," I said, feeling as if I wanted to cry. "If you want to get rid of me, I'll go without that. But I should have thought I might be sent again to ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... no way, for I had no money to offer a bribe, and the possibility of escaping grew more and ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn

... money to thyself, Bekie," she answered. "Thy cousin John and I have no need of it. Neither doth he require a bribe to make him willing to take me for his wife. To speak truth, we loved each other long ere I set eyes on thee, and 'twas but the King, my father, who would have none of him. Perchance by now ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson

... "D'you think you can fix me with a buck for a job like this? You can't bribe me to stand around while you bump off Donnegan. Can't be ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand

... was a bribe from some tradesman in the town—meant for old Rutilianus. "Nay," said Allo. "This is a gift from Amal, that Winged Hat whom you saved on the beach. He says ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling

... coughed and hemmed in a great confusion. He explained in delicate hints that he himself was to bribe the sentry at the door to let her pass for a few moments into the house. The ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason

... very nice to me, and I love her, and I guess she will be glad to come. She likes MOSS-roses, and so do I," added the unblushing little beggar, as Mr. Dover took out his knife and began to make the bouquet which was to be Miss Penny's bribe. He could not bear to give up his little playmate, and was quite ready to try again, with this persistent and charming ally to help him heal ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott

... part in the very numerous religious ballads on the Last Judgment. St. Michael acts as the judge. Some "sinful souls" commit the gross error of attempting to bribe him: whereupon, Michael shouts, "Ilya the Prophet! Anakh! Take ye guns with great thunder! Move ye the Pharaoh mountains of stone! Let me not hear from these sinners, neither a whine nor ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... the hostile factions would have been sufficiently violent, if it had been left to itself. But it was studiously exasperated by the common enemy of both. Lewis still continued to bribe and flatter both the court and the opposition. He exhorted Charles to be firm: he exhorted James to raise a civil war in Scotland: he exhorted the Whigs not to flinch, and to rely with confidence on the protection ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... had been many and alluring) to disclose the secret of this home of which he was not the least interesting factor. What has made him thus suddenly careless, he who has never been careless before? Money? A bribe from the woman who ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green

... possess these qualities, they remained among the common herd. But there came a time when, here and there, some mighty warrior gained so much wealth in cattle and in slaves taken in battle, that {35} he was able to bribe some of his people and to frighten others into consenting that his son should be chief after him. If the son was strong enough to hold the office through his own life and to hand it to his son, ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson

... walk stoutly. And he was larger than a boy of three years old, even one of great growth and size. And the boy was nursed the second year, and then he was as large as a child six years old. And before the end of the fourth year, he would bribe the grooms to allow him to take the horses to water. "My Lord," said his wife unto Teirnyon, "Where is the colt which thou didst save on the night that thou foundest the boy?" "I have commanded the grooms of ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 3 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards

... House of Commons during Sir Robert Walpole's regime, the proverbial dictum of that high priest of corruption would never have been uttered, for certainly no man would ever have dreamed of offering a bribe to Robert Baldwin. He has been in his grave for more than a quarter of a century; thirty-four years have elapsed since his withdrawal from public life; yet he is still referred to by adherents of both political ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... Butler came here looking for boat-men; and I know he tried to bribe Cato to go. Cato told me." She turned sharply to the others. "But mind you say nothing to Sir Lupus of this until I choose to ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... decide between contending parties, who abide by his decision rather than go to law; or else five or six respectable men are called upon to form a sort of amateur jury, and to settle the matter. In criminal cases, if the prosecutor is powerful, he has it all his own way; if the prisoner can bribe high, he is apt to get off. All the appealing to my compassion was quite en regle. Another trait ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... defenseless and feeble! Such is not the work that wise masters confide to fierce slaves. But that is the least of the reasons which exclude them from my choice, and fix my choice of assistant on you. Do you forget what I told you of the danger which the Dervish declared no bribe I could offer could tempt him a second time ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... of the Republic and has ceased to be a source of strength to the Administration in power, or to become the price or reward of political activity. The offices of trust and profit now exist to serve the people and not to bribe them. ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... all who regard the virtue, the honor, and the patriotism of their country, withhold their suffrages from those candidates for office who offer ardent spirit as a bribe to secure their elevation to power. It is derogatory to the liberties of our country, that office can be obtained by such corruption—be held by such ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... mother-bird came back, bringing a large bug which she used as a bribe for her timid birdling, holding it under his very bill, and then darting off in the hope that he would follow. The youngster chirped for the bug, but he would not fly for it; and, after many efforts, the old bird, unable ...
— The Nursery, February 1878, Vol. XXIII, No. 2 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various

... with engaging frankness. "Why was it," asked one of these troublesome questioners, "that the law provided for a fee of ten dollars if the commissioner decided in favor of the claimant, and for a fee of only five dollars if he decided otherwise? Was this not in the nature of an inducement, a bribe?" "I presume," said Douglas, "that the reason was that he would have more labor to perform. If, after hearing the testimony, the commissioner decided in favor of the claimant, the law made it his duty to prepare ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... his only bribe, Our Bard pursued his old A. B. C. 70 Contented if he could subscribe In fullest sense his name Estse; ('Tis Punic Greek for 'he hath stood!') Whate'er the men, the cause was good; And therefore with a right good will, 75 Poor fool, he fights their ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... objections to every change that was proposed; and such objections there was little difficulty in finding. The members of the New Company were ill provided with the means of purchasing support at Court and in Parliament. They had no corporate existence, no common treasury. If any of them gave a bribe, he gave it out of his own pocket, with little chance of being reimbursed. But the Old Company, though surrounded by dangers, still held its exclusive privileges, and still made its enormous profits. Its stock had indeed gone down ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... vessels, on the pretense that they were affording aid to England. In order, if possible, to prevent war, the President sent out a special mission to France; but the commissioners—Pinckney, Gerry, and Marshall—were told by the Directory that they must pay money as a bribe before they could be received, and were finally ordered to quit the country (1797). The phrase of Pinckney, "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute," expressed the universal feeling. The report of the insulted envoys roused the indignation of the American people, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... in the Chancellor's head, and Egon's help might be necessary. He might even have to go so far as to bribe Egon to kidnap the girl and sacrifice himself by marrying her out of hand, before she had a chance to learn that the Emperor was ready to meet her demands. Egon had been attentive to Miss Mowbray; it might well be believed even by the Emperor, ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson

... uneasiness. "Well, I will," said she, stoutly. "No, that I will not. You begin by bribing me; and then you would set me to bribe him." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... Immediately two beautiful horses came bounding over the fence and trotted up to their master. One put his nose into Borrow's outstretched hand and the other kept snuffing at his pockets in expectation of the usual bribe for confidence and ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... the number of her masters. By both Church and Common Law the Lords temporal (barons and other peers) and the Lords spiritual (Archbishops, Bishops, and Abbots) possessed and exercised the right to dispose of her purity, either for a money consideration or as a bribe or ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener

... the Princesse de Cadignan in 1839. The artful and pretty Champagne girl was sought by the sub-prefect of Arcis-sur-Aube, by Maxime de Trailles, and by Mme. Beauvisage, the mayor's wife, each trying to bribe and enlist her on the side of one of the various candidates for deputy. [The ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... lunch, and it got darker and darker in there, and hot and close and cramped. I put in the time, much as I could, thinking of Tom. The very first thing I'd do after cashing in, would be to get up to Sing Sing to see him. I'm crazy to see him. I'd tell him the news and see if he couldn't bribe a guard, or plan some scheme with me to ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson

... drop suddenly and completely from the knowledge of another—a mediaeval thing. Their isolation as Europeans of course accounted for it; there was no medium in the brown population that hummed in the city streets. Hilda could not even bribe a servant without knowing how to speak to him. She ravaged the newspapers; they never were more bare of reference to consecrated labours. The nearest approach to one was a paragraph chronicling a social evening given ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... Churchill's speech on the Home Rule Bill made frankly clear (February, 1913). We now learn that the First Lord of the Admiralty has decided to establish a new training squadron, "with a base at Queenstown," where it is hoped to induce with the bribe of "self-government" the youth of Cork and Munster to again man the British fleet as they did in the days of Nelson, and we are even told that the prospects of ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement

... Walpole(3) (a great Whig member) said that I and my whimsical Club writ it at one of our meetings, and that I should pay for it. He will find he lies: and I shall let him know by a third hand my thoughts of him. He is to be Secretary of State, if the Ministry changes; but he has lately had a bribe proved against him in Parliament, while he was Secretary at War. He is one of ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... means!" She laughed, but her heart sickened with a sense of the truth of his phrase. "It's only a very small part payment. You can at least know that the bribe they offer is large." ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... themselves into a company in 1648 and attempted "to act some plays with as much caution and privacy as could be at the Cockpit"; but after three or four days they were stopped by soldiers. Thereafter, on special occasions "they used to bribe the officer who commanded the guard at Whitehall, and were thereupon connived at to act for a few days at the Red Bull, but were sometimes, notwithstanding, disturbed by soldiers."[510] To such clandestine performances Kirkman refers in his Preface to The Wits, or Sport upon Sport (1672): "I have ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams

... witty Englishman said, in a book, not long ago, that it was a mistake to say of a conspicuously successful man, eminent in his line of business, that you could not bribe a man like that, because, he said, the point about such men is that they have been bribed—not in the ordinary meaning of that word, not in any gross, corrupt sense, but they have achieved their great success by means of the existing order of things and therefore they have been put under bonds ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson

... capable of feeling, and from henceforth measure my feelings by your own. Unless my love for you were very great how could I so contentedly give up my home and all my friends—a home I loved so much that I have often thought nothing could bribe me to renounce it for any great length of time together, and friends with whom I have been so long accustomed to share all the vicissitudes of joy and sorrow? Yet these have lost their weight, and though I cannot always think of them without a sigh, yet the anticipation of sharing ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... hast squander'd years to grave a gem Commissioned by thy absent Lord, and while 'Tis incomplete, Others would bribe thy needy skill to them— Dismiss ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... the prime minister of Death! There's nought can bribe his honest will. He stops the richest tyrant's breath And lays his mischief still. Each wicked scheme for power all stops, With grandeurs false and mock display, As eve's shades from high mountain tops ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry

... beauty! what a grand arch of the neck he has! Oh, I'm just wild to be on him! Don't bribe me with horses, Graydon; I ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe

... indeed, as we have noted, granted the franchise to the Catholic peasant and abolished the penal laws. But it was part of the policy of the British Government to show that Grattan's Parliament could not grant Catholic emancipation in its full sense. The grant was to be kept as a bribe by which to achieve the policy of the Union. Anyone who reads the story in the pages of Lecky[53] must see how that motive ran like a sinister thread throughout the whole working of British policy from ...
— Home Rule - Second Edition • Harold Spender

... successful. She brought Margherita's father indeed from Siena and established him as a baker near the villa; but no commands, threats, or bribe of his could induce his daughter ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney

... with a handful of bribes and a heart full of cheap intrigue, must do his work from the corridor. A legislative seat was a two-edged sword to cut both ways. You could trade with it, using it as a bribe, bartering vote for vote; that was one edge. Or you could threaten with it, promising nay for nay, and thus compel some member to save your bill to save his own; that was the other edge. A mere bribe from the lobby owned but the one edge; ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... jockeys and footmen. One lord held eight sinecure offices, and was besides colonel of two regiments. A Chancellor of the Exchequer cleared four hundred thousand on a new loan, and the bulk of this large sum remained in his own pocket, for he had but few associates to bribe. When patrols were set to guard the Treasury at night, ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... see him bowing down to somebody whom he does not really believe in; when we see him yielding to forces which he does not himself respect; when living is more to him than living well; when there is a threat which can make him cringe, or a bribe that can make his tongue speak false—then we feel that the manhood has gone out of him, and we cannot help looking on his fall with sorrow and with shame. The penalty which follows moral cowardice is nowhere more clearly stated than in these severe ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde

... through the plan at once, and considered it only a bribe, to prevent my exposing the iniquity of others. Should I consent to take a part of the ill-gotten spoils, with what confidence could I attempt to stay the hand of the spoiler. I wanted money very much, it is true; but after a moment's reflection, not enough ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward

... can bribe the police," counseled Nanak Singh, and he surely ought to know, for he was the oldest trooper, and trouble everlasting had preserved him from promotion. "But weapons are good, when policemen are not looking," he added, and the squadron agreed ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy

... paid; or perhaps the alienation was itself made to them "pro favore habendo" in some transaction that the Hospitallers wished to have carried by the Courts; or it may have been made as a bona fide bribe for future protection. At all events, when we see such extensive payments made annually to the lawyers, their ultimate possession of the fee simple is no unnatural result. But, as I am altogether ignorant of the history of the New Temple, I must refrain from ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 38, Saturday, July 20, 1850 • Various

... is rotten with corruption. Offices with merely nominal salaries or none at all are usually bought by the payment of a heavy bribe and held for a term of three years, during which the incumbent seeks not only to recoup himself but to make as large an additional sum as possible. As the weakness of the Government and the absence of an outspoken public press leave them free from restraint, China is the very paradise ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... the girl felt inclined to pooh-pooh her fancies of half an hour before. The power of the money bribe could not fail. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie

... which I deemed likely to succeed—was to make a hole in the floor of my cell; but to do this tools must be obtained—a difficult task in a place where all communication with the outside world was forbidden, where neither letters nor visits were allowed. To bribe a guard a good deal of money would be necessary, and I had none. And supposing that the gaoler and his two guards allowed themselves to be strangled—for my hands were my only weapons—there was always a third guard on duty at ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... "you could read that in the look of his jaw and eye when he left. Just what he stands to make on his play, I don't know. But I do know that the Western Lumber crowd is offering us only a quarter of what they'd be willing to pay if they had to. That means that they could afford to bribe Bayne Trevors pretty heavily and still save half a million on the deal if he succeeded in the thing ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory

... costly gifts. When the treasure-bearers appeared in Gordon's quarters, bearing bowls full of gold on their heads, as if they had walked straight out of the Arabian nights, Gordon, believing the Emperor meant to bribe him to say no more about the murder of the Wangs, was in a white-heat of fury. With his "magic wand" he fell on the treasure-bearers, and flogged the amazed and terrified men out ...
— The Story of General Gordon • Jeanie Lang

... plain words," he demanded. "You would bribe me to sell you something you cannot create for yourselves. The name of Harkness has stood for fair-dealing, for honor, for scrupulous observance of our clients' rights. My father established it on that basis and I have continued in the same way. And you?—well, ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various

... that of her undaunted and pious countryman and contemporary, Bougi, who, when Louis would have prevailed on him to renounce his religion for a commission or a government, nobly replied, "If I could be persuaded to betray my God for a marshal's staff, I might betray my king for a bribe of ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More

... petrified, cruel fashions of the past. It must be added, however, that if her hostess was a humbug, Olive had never met one who provoked her less; she was such a brilliant, genial, artistic one, with such a recklessness of perfidy, such a willingness to bribe you if she couldn't deceive you. She seemed to be offering Olive all the kingdoms of the earth if she would only exert herself to bring about a state of feeling on Verena Tarrant's part which would lead the girl to ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James

... was successful, Wekotani endeavoured to induce Chumah, another protege of the Doctor's, and a companion, or chum, of Wekotani, to leave the Doctor's service and proceed with him, promising, as a bribe, a wife and plenty of pombe from his "big brother." Chumah, upon referring the matter to the Doctor, was advised not to go, as he (the Doctor) strongly suspected that Wekotani wanted only to make him his slave. Chumah wisely withdrew from his tempter. From Mponda's, the Doctor proceeded ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... Kotwals, or messengers. The reason of the attention paid to suits seems to have been, that the Raja took one-fourth of all property recovered by legal process, and allowed the judge a share; of course, the complainant usually gained the cause. The principal chance which the defendant had was giving a bribe higher than the share that the judge would legally receive; but the Raja was a check on this ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton

... course, not a secret to anybody that the baser sort of man can at any time be diverted from the path of public morality by a monetary bribe or other personal advantage, he will not, at any rate, set at naught all public morality by doing so for a peppercorn. He will, for instance, not join, for the sake of a daughter, a political movement in which he has no belief; nor vote for this or that candidate just ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright

... and at this time particularly, wherein I find more heroines, than heroes; let me therefore give them joy of their new champion: If any will think me more partial to him, than I really am, they can only say, I have returned his bribe; and he word I wish him is, that he may receive justice from the men, and favour only ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber

... chidden, Puss in disgrace, and pug forbidden. Each of his dearest chum grew shy. And none could tell a reason why. Burglars to rob the house laid wait. Betty in love, undid the gate; The cur was won by dint of meat; Remained the mastiff dog to cheat. The mastiff dog refused the bribe, And tore the hand of one beside. The cur off with the tidings ran, And told how he had bit a man. The master said: "Hanged he shall be!" They dragged poor Trusty to the tree: He met his master, and averred That he had ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay

... "here's a bribe. You find him and give him my message. You tell him if he isn't here in five minutes ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... White Caps." He was silent for a moment and then he continued: "The intercourse between you and me has been far from friendly. I do not deny that I should like to see you leave this place, never to return; I acknowledge that I would bribe you to go, but I would not give countenance to a mob that would force ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read

... wrote that while there were doubtless many members of the Illinois legislature who during the great contracts of the war time and the demoralizing reconstruction days that followed, had never accepted a bribe, he wished to bear testimony that he personally had known but this one man who had never been offered a bribe because bad men were instinctively ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... about the Catholic Bill. I shall tell everybody that you are going to put up for Middlemarch on the Whig side when old Pinkerton resigns, and that Casaubon is going to help you in an underhand manner: going to bribe the voters with pamphlets, and throw open the public-houses ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... pass the long winter evenings, Charlie had tried to bribe Allie to become his pupil and, after his hour of practice was ended, he usually took her in hand for a time, in a vain endeavor to teach her to play. But, in spite of her desire to please her cousin, Allie had neither the patience nor steadiness ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray

... greatest and best of all flatterers. The defect is, that they flatter only in print or in writing, but not by word of mouth; they will give things under their hand which they make a conscience of speaking. Besides, they are too libertine to haunt antechambers, too poor to bribe porters and footmen, and too proud to cringe to second-hand ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville

... Jugurtha, after having honored him, in a public assembly, with the noblest presents and applauses, into his own tent; where he privately admonished him "to court the friendship of the Romans rather by attention to them as a body, than by practicing on individuals;[27] to bribe no one, as what belonged to many could not without danger be bought from a few; and adding that, if he would but trust to his own merits, glory and regal power would spontaneously fall to his lot; but, should ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust

... with her to bribe the gypsy, and since they had parted company at the door of the tent, Olive had not seen her at all. It now began to seem strange to her, and she had decided ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller

... one of the prisoners was not a Christian: the guards were forward to make the utmost pecuniary profit of this circumstance, and in the night, Marius, taking advantage of the loose charge kept over them, and by means partly of a large bribe, had contrived that Cornelius, as the really innocent person, should be dismissed in safety on his way, to procure, as Marius explained, the proper means of defence for himself, when ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater

... all-powerful Duchess of Marlborough. In as civil terms as her sick rage could muster, the frightened woman offered Mr. Pope L1,000 to suppress his verbal portrait of her, in the character of Atossa, from his Moral Essays; and Pope straightway decided to accept the bribe, and afterward to print his verses unchanged. For the hag, as he reflected, very greatly needed to be taught that in this world there was at least one person who did not quail before her tantrums. There would be, moreover, even an elementary justice in thus robbing ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell

... that hunger and thirst after nothing good, for they also shall be filled. Herein is democracy, that whether you are a beggar's son or the son of Croesus you cannot escape from yourself—you cannot bribe or frighten yourself into being anything else than what your own hungers and ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various

... Bernhardi aimed a kick at him under the table, which caught the shin of the Austrian instead. He was considered to have mismanaged the thing, and it was whispered that he had gone too far—I infer that he offered a heavy bribe to secure a majority in the Cortes. Fifty thousand pounds of Prussian bonds were sent to Spain at midsummer 1870.... I know the bankers through whose hands they ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... here upon the soil of Palmyra? A Roman, trust me, takes quick root in this rich earthy and soon shoots up and spreads out into a perfectly proportioned Palmyrene, tall and beautiful as a date tree. Father, how can we bribe him? You shake your head as if without hope. Well, let us wait till Calpurnius returns; when you find him an Oriental, perhaps you may be induced to emigrate too. Surely it is no such great matter to remove from Rome to Palmyra. We do not ask you to love Rome any ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... Prince and his set. You know the way they bribe. Intrigues everywhere, new and old overlapping. They have really some reason for keeping you and me apart, but as regards my other movements, I am free enough. And they thought, Victor—don't be angry—but I let them think it ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... O bribe-giver, marked with purple metal— Cut in your naked contentment there shows On the curve of your breast one carven petal From ...
— Spectra - A Book of Poetic Experiments • Arthur Ficke

... see there are two sovereigns lying here. That man has actually tried to bribe me to influence you in ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett

... slowly and evenly. "We're also going to need every bit of stock you've accumulated, major. We're going to have to buy your way into the columns of the fracas buff magazine. We're going to have to bribe my colleagues, the Telly camera crews, to keep you on lens when you're looking good, and, more important still, off it when you're not. We're going to have to ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... design, she swore upon her thirteen years that he must carry her off too. I was far from conceding any such claim. It was always taken for granted that children know nothing; but at the opera, and in love, there are no children. The Count de Melun, by means of a bribe, had gained over the chambermaid. I was very culpable; I knew all, and had not informed my father. But my father wearied me somewhat; he preached in the desert; that is to say he preached to me about virtue. He was always talking to me about our noble descent, of our cousin, who was a cardinal, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... falcon would never have been ashamed of me before a fashionable young lady. Oh heavens! That alone kept me happy for those five years that my falcon was living somewhere beyond the mountains, soaring, gazing at the sun.... Tell me, you impostor, have you got much by it I Did you need a big bribe to consent? I wouldn't have given you a farthing. Ha ha ha! ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... with all these proud desires For dauntless truth and honest fame; With that strong master of our frame, The inexorable judge within, What can be done? Alas, ye fires Of love; alas, ye rosy smiles, Ye nectar'd cups from happier soils,— Ye have no bribe his ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... come now!" said Lawrence. "I suppose you are going to tell me next that you've got a setting hen in another trunk and that you are going to bribe Fritz and Karl with fresh eggs. And that's no merry jest; we haven't seen a fresh egg in ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney

... clearly identified with the growth of the city. The chairman of the building committee stated at the opening of the new depot, that during the entire building of that road, there was not a dollar paid as a bribe to either the Legislature or the City Council, to receive ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... be well provided for. I will thank you to tell her that, Lovell. Tell her that I am willing to settle an annuity upon her; always on condition that she does not intrude herself upon me. But remember, whatever I give is contingent upon her own good conduct, and must not in any way be taken as a bribe. If she chooses to think and speak ill of me, she is free to do so. I have no fear of her; nor ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... favor. He did not, however, bestow on Agricola the salary [139] usually offered to a proconsul, and which he himself had granted to others; either taking offence that it was not requested, or feeling a consciousness that it would seem a bribe for what he had in reality extorted by his authority. It is a principle of human nature to hate those whom we have injured; [140] and Domitian was constitutionally inclined to anger, which was the more difficult to be averted, in proportion as it was the more disguised. Yet he was softened ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... he will operate by trick and device. He will bribe someone whom you consider your best friend to aid him, and already you have ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"

... treasure. When he had retrieved three shillings and sevenpence-halfpenny he peered out. Paul was far away. Barney Bill put the money on the shelf and looked at it in a puzzled way. Was it an earnest of the boy's return, or was it a bribe to let him go? The former hypothesis seemed untenable, for if he got nabbed his penniless condition would be such an aggravation of his offence as to call down upon him a more ferocious punishment than he need have risked. And why in the name of sanity ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... one, he would have gone without the bribe, had none been suggested, for he loved the woods better than the woodpile, and a five-mile tramp through its tangles wearied his bones not so much as picking up a single basketful of chips. Some boys' bones are constituted thus, strange ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)

... who refuses a bribe conquers the man who offers it. According to this, the journalist who resists the many temptations which come to him to surrender his ideals has the consciousness of winning a moral victory as well as the satisfaction of knowing that he is rendering ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan

... is here. When he gets out it is his own affair again, but while he's here—by-the-way, you'll have to watch the orderly. He'll bribe him." ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... the contrary, to the person who can command the use of a boat, and drop down upon the lazy current with a long line ahead of him, those dense defences of the bank become conservators of sport. They are better than a keeper, for they are always there, and cannot by any bribe be seduced from their duty. And more than any other tree the alder is the familiar companion of the angler. Upon some rivers the willow would contest the position, perhaps, but Fate demands that it should run to pollard, and so ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior

... unladen several of the wheat-ships for enormous largesses of bread: though those rascally monks of Tabenne had nearly forestalled my benevolence, and I was forced to bribe a deacon or two, buy up the stock they had sent down, and retail it again as my own. It is really most officious of them to persist in feeding gratuitously half the poor of the city! What possible ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... rights,—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,—let us legislate to enforce our belief. All men are not born equal, if one is born with power to live without toil; power to control the movements of a hundred thousand of his unequal fellow-citizens; power to bribe legislatures; power to hire a pretorian guard of laborers, writers, editors, clergymen, and even soldiers or police to do his bidding and to sing his praise, and to threaten those who wish to establish ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various

... Montalesso!" persisted Dulcie, pulling a face. "No, you dinky, deary Cousin Clare, you'll never persuade me to like school again! I shall catch a cold on purpose as soon as I go back, and then you'll have to bring me over here for the sake of a warmer climate. I'll bribe the old doctor!" ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil

... sir!" cried Crispin angrily. "You talk in vain. What to me is life, or aught that life can give? If I have so long endured the burden of it, it has been so that I might draw from it this hour. Do you think there is any bribe you could offer would ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini

... umpire amongst his coevals. Though so frankly ambitious, no one could accuse him of attempting to climb on the shoulders of patrons. There was nothing servile in his nature; and, though he was perfectly prepared to bribe electors if necessary, no money could have bought himself. His one master-passion was the desire of power. He sneered at patriotism as a worn-out prejudice, at philanthropy as a sentimental catch-word. He did not want to serve his country, but to rule it. He did not want to raise mankind, ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... much of this Portuguese fellow? Has he bewitched you? Or is it because he is your sister's son, or because you want to force Marie there to marry him? Or is it, perhaps, that he knows of something bad in your past life, and you have to bribe him to keep ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard

... development of affairs, these are reduced to mere personal states of pleasure or pain. Educationally, it then follows that to attach importance to interest means to attach some feature of seductiveness to material otherwise indifferent; to secure attention and effort by offering a bribe of pleasure. This procedure is properly stigmatized as "soft" pedagogy; as ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... subsequently constable at Florence, and of his wife Vincenzia Diligenti. Possessed in her girlhood of fascinating appearance and charming manners, she came out as a ballet dancer at the principal opera at Florence, and one night she so impressed Lord Newborough that, by means of a golden bribe, he had her transferred from the stage to his residence. His conduct towards her was tender and affectionate, and, in spite of the disparity of years, he afterwards married her, introducing her to the ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer

... that each community had its special hope of survival, and that each, until quite the end of the process, regarded its fate, when that fate fell upon it, as something exceptional and peculiar to itself. Some, or rather many, purchased temporary exemption, doubtless secure in the belief that their bribe would make that extension permanent. Their payments were accepted, but the contracts depending upon ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc

... treaties as extraditable. The recent amended treaty with Mexico, whereby this crime was put in the list of extraditable offenses, has established a salutary precedent in this regard. Under this treaty the State Department has asked, and Mexico has granted, the extradition of one of the St. Louis bribe givers. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... trifle irresolute, as though the bribe of finally possessing Brenda was tempting enough to outweigh any other consideration. But he looked at her before replying, and her contemptuous shake of the head was completely decisive. He could not question any ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford

... littered barracks here, like a murderer; for all that, you may well stare at Ethan Ticonderoga Allen, the unconquered soldier, by ——! You Turks never saw a Christian before. Stare on! I am he, who, when your Lord Howe wanted to bribe a patriot to fall down and worship him by an offer of a major-generalship and five thousand acres of choice land in old Vermont—(Ha! three-times-three for glorious old Vermont, and my Green-Mountain boys! Hurrah! Hurrah! ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... heavy wooden collar, taken off at night only if the sentence is a long one, or on payment of a bribe. ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles

... the country has been saddled with thousands of titular officials far in excess of the number of appointments to be given away. Deserving men were kept waiting for years, while inferior and less capable officials were pushed ahead, because they had money wherewith to bribe their way. Nevertheless the purchase system admitted into the service a number of men free from that bigoted adherence to Confucian doctrine which characterizes the literary classes, and more in touch ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... that money was their sole object. But then it cannot be denied that their application to you for money had a sound basis,—one which, though you might fairly refuse to allow it, takes away from the application all idea of criminality. Crinkett has never asked for money as a bribe to hold his tongue. In a matter of trade between them and you, you were very successful; they were very unfortunate. A man asking for restitution in such circumstances will ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... near Thespiae with an army, to receive and assist those Thebans[9] who were now sent into exile because they favoured the Lacedaemonians. Pelopidas sent secretly to this man a merchant, a friend of his own, who gave him a bribe, and also made proposals which fascinated him more than the money, that he should attempt some enterprise on a great scale, and surprise Peiraeus by a sudden attack when the Athenians were off their guard: for the Lacedaemonians would ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... break every fetter, and emancipate the land. If this state of things be not speedily reversed, 'we be all dead men.' Unless the pulpit lift up the voice of warning, supplication and wo, with a fidelity which no emolument can bribe, and no threat intimidate; unless the church organise and plan for the redemption of the benighted slaves, and directly assault the strong holds of despotism; unless the press awake to its duty, or desist ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison

... found seventeen thousand dollars worth of contraband goods in his cellar, but that he had a frolic at his house, invited all the ladies about there and the Officers of the gunboats and thus this was all hushed up; said he could bribe ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith

... cast himself from the temple to convince Satan or glory visibly in his Sonship, so he steadily refused to give the sign which the human Satans demanded, notwithstanding the offer of conviction which they held forth to bribe him to the grant. How easy it seems to have confounded them, and strengthened his followers! But such conviction would stand in the way of a better conviction in his disciples, and would do his adversaries only harm. For neither ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... sent to Plymouth. One of them offered Commander Macomb and Lieutenant Commander English a large amount of gold, which he had on his person, to release him; but like Paulding and Van Wert of old, the patriotism of the sailor chiefs revolted at the attempt to bribe them, and an order to place the rebel in closer confinement was the only result of the proposition. Corruption has been little known in this war among our naval officers; and though many of them are far from wealthy, their honor and good name ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten

... prince in disguise—that they might exhibit themselves to him, and submit the question of the right to the apple to his award. The contending goddesses appeared accordingly before Paris, and each attempted to bribe him to decide in her favor, by offering him some peculiar and tempting reward. Paris gave the apple to Aphrodite, and she was so pleased with the result, that she took Paris under her special protection, and made the solitudes of Mount Ida one ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... the card, and read, "Mr. George Blackwell, Lincoln's Inn." His brow grew dark—he let the card fall on the ground, put his foot on it with a quiet scorn, and muttered to himself, "The lawyer shall not bribe me out of my curse!" He turned to the total of the bill—not heavy, for poor Catherine had regularly defrayed the expense of her scanty maintenance and humble lodging—paid the money, and, as the landlady wrote the receipt, he asked, "Who was the gentleman—the younger gentleman—who ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... bring upon himself bitter hostility and accusations of the most serious character. And such was the case. Demosthenes has been accused of many crimes and immoralities, some of them so different in character as to be almost mutually exclusive. The most serious charge is that of receiving a bribe from Harpalus, the absconding treasurer of Alexander. He was tried upon this charge, convicted, fined fifty talents, and thrown into prison. Thence he escaped to ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... chance to meet him, Oh do not pull, or kick, or push, Or execrate, or bribe, or beat him, But make ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... Tell her, I'll none on't; I'm not ashamed of honest poverty; Not all the diamonds of the east can bribe Ventidius from his faith. I hope to see These and the rest of all her sparkling store, Where they ...
— All for Love • John Dryden

... pension, founded, as it is probable, on his father's services to Government in 1715. But this statement, and the conditions upon which the bounty was given are left in obscurity. "Whether," says the anonymous biographer of Lord Kilmarnock, "my Lord Kilmarnock's pension was a ministerial bribe, or a royal bounty, is a question I cannot determine with any certainty; but I have reason to suspect the former, since few pensions, granted by a certain administration, that of Sir Robert Walpole, deserved the latter." The same writer truly observes, that little ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson

... accept the doctor's bribe. This was almost necessary, for in any case he would be obliged to ...
— The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories • Nicholas Carter

... interrupt your preferment in the world, such as it is. But touching Tressilian—I must do him justice, for I have done him wrong, as none knows better than thou. Tressilian's conscience is of other mould—the world thou speakest of has not that which could bribe him from the way of truth and honour; and for living in it with a soiled fame, the ermine would as soon seek to lodge in the den of the foul polecat. For this my father loved him; for this I would have loved him—if I could. And yet in this case he had what ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... Czarnecki was now directed against the whole of the Russian and two Polish generals, the notorious and unprincipled Raznieki, the head of the secret police of the kingdom, and Kossecki. Means had in vain been tried to bribe Messrs. Schuch and Czarnecki through the commissary of the circle, that the investigations should cease, or that the generals should not appear to be implicated in the affair. It was ascertained by the investigation ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various

... plead such pride to Ratty, who paid more attention to shooting than his lessons. His mother strove to persuade—Ratty was deaf. His "gran" strove to bribe—Ratty was incorruptible. Gusty argued—Ratty ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... he almost neglected her enquiries: finding, however, that she would be answered, he told her, that being by the permission of ALMORAN admitted to every part of the palace, except that of the women, he had found means to bribe the eunuch who kept the door; who was not in danger of detection, because ALMORAN, wearied with the tumult and fatigue of the day, had retired to sleep, and given order to be called at a certain hour. She then complained of the felicitations to which she was exposed, ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth

... President to-day, urging the necessity of preventing the transportation of any supplies on the railroads except for distribution at cost, and thus exterminating the speculators. The poor must be fed and protected, if they be relied upon to defend the country. The rich bribe the conscription officers, and keep out of the ranks, invest their Confederate money and bonds in real estate, and would be the first to submit to the United States Government; and the poor, whom they oppress, are in danger ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... have dreamed of—that you hardly believe in—that were made to enjoy. I have told you of the theater, the opera—you should go to the finest in the world. You should wear the most beautiful gowns and jewels, go to courts, see the great works of art—I am not trying to bribe you," he stammered, flushing miserably. "God forbid that I should stoop to anything as mean as that. But it all rushed upon me suddenly that I could give you so much that you were made for, with this ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton

... advances of Sylvain, and her almost fierce determination never to marry. To complete his outrages, Denis boldly avows his intention to marry Dame Rose, and offers money to her he has betrayed, in order to bribe her to silence. The band of harvesters appears, bearing in triumph the last sheaf, adorned with flowers and ribbons. The grandfather, Remy, full of joy, pronounces a discourse of rude and simple eloquence on the beneficence ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... Preliminary Discourse, and contributed largely to its columns, editing the mathematical portion of it; trained to quiet and frugality, was indifferent to wealth and honour, and a very saint of science; no earthly bribe could tear him away from his ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... exceedingly agreeable gentleman had never seen me till that moment. How long this might have lasted I know not, had not a person in the dogana, compassionating my dullness, stepped up to me, and whispered into my ear to give the searcher a few paulos. I was a little scandalized at this proposal to bribe his Holiness's servant; but I could see no chance otherwise of having the iron gate opened. Accordingly, I got ready the requisite douceur; and, waiting his return, which soon happened, took care to drop the few pauls ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... said Kate, thoughtfully. "Tell me, now, who put it into your head to bribe a poor girl in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... Knight, and the pretended purchasers were paid the difference out of the company's cash. This fictitious stock, which had been chiefly at the disposal of Sir John Blunt, Mr. Gibbon, and Mr. Knight, was distributed among several members of the government and their connexions, by way of bribe, to facilitate the passing of the bill. To the Earl of Sunderland was assigned 50,000l. of this stock; to the Duchess of Kendal, 10,000l.; to the Countess of Platen, 10,000l.; to her two nieces, 10,000l.; to Mr. Secretary Craggs, 30,000l.; to Mr. Charles Stanhope ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... the throne of Naples had been held out to Marchese di Pescara. He evidently regarded this in the nature of a dishonorable bribe, and it is this view which the Marchesa ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... be determined there. Books were circulated in abundance in opposition to mine. Resort was again had to the public papers, as the means of raising a hue and cry against the principles of the Friends of the Negros. I was again denounced as a spy; and as one sent by the English minister to bribe members in the Assembly to do that in a time of public agitation, which in the settled state of France they could never have been prevailed upon to accomplish. And as a proof that this was my errand, it was requested of every Frenchman to put to himself the following ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... their subjects call themselves Christians and observe the customs of the Church, it was all they attempted. Taxmar was not the sort of person to be converted in that informal way. He demanded reasons. If Aguilar advised him against having unhappy people murdered to bribe the gods for their help in the coming campaign, he wished to know what the objection was, and what the white chiefs did in such a case. The idea of sacrificing to one's god, not the lives of men, but one's own will and selfish desires, was entirely ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... a last trap; "do you suppose you could manage this business of getting away the woman, if I paid you well, and gave you a bribe for her?" ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... with consummate cleverness; but there were two women who knew the true story of the birth of the child, which had been smuggled into the palace from a Florence slum. One was the changeling's mother, a woman of the people, whom a substantial bribe had induced to part with her new-born infant; the other was Bianca's waiting woman. These witnesses to the imposture ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... who had to pay for it. Ah! if he could only manage to prevent it, if she could sprain her ankle before starting, if the driver of the carriage which was to take her to the station would consent (no matter how great the bribe) to smuggle her to some place where she could be kept for a time in seclusion, that perfidious woman, her eyes tinselled with a smile of complicity for Forcheville, which was what Odette had become for Swann ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... God," Christians are to deny by law, to every slave who refuses to be converted, the rights of husband and father, rights of persons, rights of property, rights over his own body. Thus manumission is a bribe to make hypocritical converts, and Christian superiority a plea for depriving men of their dearest rights. Is not freedom older than Christianity? Does the Christian recommend his religion to a Pagan by stealing his manhood and all that belongs to it? Truly, if only ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... Addicks surprised all by his absolute fearlessness in the face of a savage attack, which culminated in the production of a document signed by certain Massachusetts legislators, wherein they receipted for the bribe money Addicks had paid for their votes. The man who claimed he was being cheated threatened this would be laid before the Grand Jury the following day. All the witnesses were dumfounded at the situation and in concert ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... cock;—the sharks have been at and about him this many a day, but Father Crackenthorp knows how to trim his sails—never a warrant but he hears of it before the ink's dry. He is BONUS SOCIUS with headborough and constable. The king's exchequer could not bribe a man to inform against him. If any such rascal were to cast up, why, he would miss his ears next morning, or be sent to seek them in the Solway. He is a statesman, [A small landed proprietor.] though he ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... it all!" said Leonard with irritation, "how can we turn back now? Just think of the journey and how foolish we should look. Besides, we have none of us got anything to live upon; it took most of the gold that I had to bribe Peter and his men to accompany us. I dare say that we shall all be killed, that seems very probable, but for my part I really shan't be sorry. I am tired of life, Francisco; it is nothing but a struggle and a wretchedness, and I begin to feel that peace is all I can hope to ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard

... briberie, begging or vagrancy, bribe, Mid. Lat. briba, signifying a piece of bread given to beggars; the Eng. "bribe" has passed through the meanings of alms, blackmail and extortion, to gifts received or given in order to influence corruptly). The public offence of bribery may be defined as the offering or giving of payment in some shape or form ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... beautiful maiden, is like Venus, and also like Atalanta; she is hard to woo and hard to win, like the fleet-footed maiden, but, like her, she yields at last and becomes a happy wife. The golden apples with which Skirnir tries to bribe her remind us of the golden fruit which Hippomenes cast in Atalanta's way, and which made her lose ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... you? Pure Food Law scared you out of the dope, eh? Well, even at that it's the same old bunk. What about your testimonials? Fake 'em, and forge 'em, and bribe and blackmail for 'em and then stand up to me and pull the pious plate-pusher stuff about being straight. Oh, my Gawd! It'd make a straddle-bug spit at the sun, to hear you. Why, I'm no saint, but the medical line ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... the most agitated of us all. At length eleven struck in the harsh tones of the prison-clock. A few minutes after, we heard the sound of bolts drawing, and bars unfastening. The jailer entered—drunk, and much disposed to be insolent. I thought it advisable to give him another bribe, and he resumed the fawning insinuation of his manner. He now directed us, by passages which he pointed out, to gain the other side of the prison. There we were to mix with the debtors and their mob of friends, and to await his joining us, which in that crowd ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... Meanwhile your salary is a hundred a week and all you need to boost Gilman and the Order of the Crescent. We are now the Gilman Defense, Publicity, and Development Committee, and you will begin by introducing me to the man I am to bribe." ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis

... the Roman Empire was ripe for a new religion. It conquered because it threw in its lot with the ruling powers. It throve because it came with the tempting bribe of Heaven in one hand, and the withering threat of Hell in the other. The older religions, grey in their senility, had no such bribe ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford

... scratched his lantern jaws and asked how that could be brought about when every gate of the palace was shut because of the plague. Still, perhaps, it might be managed, he added, if a certain sum were forthcoming to bribe various ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... mademoiselle, that this fellow was very talkative a few days ago when he tried to bribe Fanfaro's jailer. Growl away, it is true, anyway! You promised fabulous sums to the jailer if he would mix a small white powder in Fanfaro's food. Fortunately I have eyes and ears everywhere, so I immediately took my measures. With Bobichel's ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere

... hopelessly from the first interview that there was no retreat. He had risked his own life on his judgment of character the day he made his first proposition. But his estimate had proven correct. The fellow blustered and then accepted the bribe and entered with ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... he cannot know the way:— On Hades' porter I'll a bribe bestow, That on his shoulders the dear infant may Be safely ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various



Words linked to "Bribe" :   payoff, soap, bribable, hush money, crime, sop, law-breaking, buy off, pay off, grease one's palms, pay, corrupt, buy, bribery, criminal offence, offense, kickback



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