Sometimes, idealistic people are put off the whole business of networking as something tainted by flattery and the pursuit of selfish advantage. But virtue in obscurity is rewarded only in Heaven. To succeed in this world you have to be known to people.
When people say they prefer organic food, what they often seem to mean is they don't want their food tainted with pesticides and their meat shot full of hormones or antibiotics. Many object to the way a few companies - Monsanto is the most famous of them - control so many of the seeds we grow.
If the Age of Sport has been all champagne and roses hitherto, then expect our love affair with its newly-acquired prominence to become increasingly tainted by scandals about cheating. Sport is losing its shine and allure.
Individual companies now have the voluntary responsibility of recalling their own products. While many companies have acted properly and swiftly to recall contaminated goods, the delay between the identification of tainted foods and the company's decision to recall those foods leads to the needless sickness of too many Americans.
I still have a 15¢ sticker on the frame of my law degree. It's tainted, so I just leave it in the basement.
The best work of literature to represent the American Dream is 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It shows us how dreaming can be tainted by reality, and that if you don't compromise, you may suffer.
Do not let yourself be tainted with a barren skepticism.
The moment there is suspicion about a person's motives, everything he does becomes tainted.
To many a man, and sometimes to a youth, there comes the opportunity to choose between honorable competence and tainted wealth. The young man who starts out to be poor and honorable, holds in his hand one of the strongest elements of success.
The idea that a congressman would be tainted by accepting money from private industry or private sources is essentially a socialist argument.