“Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder. ”

“[T]he social relationship of young women to young men … now seemed to Kitty like ignominious exposure of merchandise to be taken by the highest bidder.”

“He sells his loyalties to the highest bidder. Shouldn’t even a mercenary have morals? That’s the textbook definition of a whore!”

“A politician in our democratic government is a broker for the use of government force to the highest bidders.”

“Hide yourself under a bushel quickly, for if your real usefulness were known to the world you would soon be knocked down to the highest bidder by the public auctioneer.”

“To the daughters of Eve, that they may teach men that love is not lechery, nor the simony of voluptuousness, but a joy that dwells in the highest and holiest regions of the terrestrial paradise, that they may make it the highest prize of virtue, the most glorious conquest of genius, the first force of human progress.”