Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.
Corrupt
Zeal corrupts like standing water.
—Samuel Butler
Corruption is like a ball of snow, when once set a rolling, it must increase. It gives momentum to the activity of the knave, but it chills the honest man, and makes him almost weary of his calling: and all that corruption attracts, it also retains; for it is easier not to fall, than only to fall once, and not to yield a single inch, then having yielded, to regain it.
—C. C. Colton
Corrupted as the grave.
—James Montgomery
There is something in corruption which, like a jaundiced eye, transfers the color of itself to the object it looks upon, and sees everything stained and impure.
—Thomas Paine