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

-Gray,Thomas
  'Sketch of His Own Character'.

The man who offers a bribe gives awaya little of his own importance; the bribe once accepted, he becomes the inferior, like a man who has just paid for a woman.

-Greene, (Henry) Graham
  The Comedians, pt.1, ch.4.

Marriage is a bribe to make a housekeeper think she's a householder.

-Wilder,Thornton Niven
  The Merchant of Yonkers, act1.