Best 22 quotes in «power corrupts quotes» category

It is an ironic footnote on Peter Stuyvesant’s frenzy at the idea of surrender that he passed his last days, in the late 1660s and early 1670s, in peaceful contentment on his farm in Manhattan, not only unmolested but in friendship with Governor Nicolls. Shorn of power, Peter Stuyvesant was a happier and perhaps a wiser man.

The ecclesiastical governors of the Christians were taught to unite the wisdom of the serpent with the innocence of the dove; but as the former was refined, so the latter was insensibly corrupted, by the habits of government. In the church as well as in the world, the persons who were placed in any public station rendered themselves considerable by their eloquence and firmness, by their knowledge of mankind, and by their dexterity in business; and while they concealed from others, and perhaps from themselves, the secret motives of their conduct, they too frequently relapsed into all the turbulent passions of active life, which were tinctured with an additional degree of bitterness and obstinacy from the infusion of spiritual zeal.

It is not easy to be the citizen of a Superpower, nor is it getting easier. I would feel isolated with my shame if I were not sure that I belong, among millions of Americans, to a perennial minority of the nation. The obstinate bleeding hearts who will never agree that might makes right and know if the end justifies the means, the end is worthless. Power corrupts, an old truism but why does it also make the powerful so stupid? Their power schemes become unstuck in time, at cruel cost to other; then the powerful put their stupid important heads together and invent the next similar schemes [written 1987].

Knowledge is a dangerous thing. But ignorance is no protection.

Most of the crimes which disturb the internal peace of society are produced by the restraints which the necessary, but unequal, laws of property have imposed on the appetites of mankind, by confining to a few the possession of those objects that are coveted by many. Of all our passions and appetites, the love of power is of the most imperious and unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of the multitude. In the tumult of civil discord, the laws of society lose their force, and their place is seldom supplied by those of humanity. The ardor of contention, the pride of victory, the despair of success, the memory of past injuries, and the fear of future dangers, all contribute to inflame the mind, and to silence the voice of pity. From such motives almost every page of history has been stained with civil blood....

On the throne of the world, any delusion can become fact.

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Superpowers corrupt… superbly.

Malcolm X and Edmund Burke shared an appreciation of this important insight, this painful truth--that the state wants men to be weak and timid, not strong and proud.

If power corrupts, the reverse is also true; persecution corrupts the victims though perhaps in subtler and more tragic ways.

The masses, on admitting their own incapacity to govern themselves, have elected me as their head By doing so, they have clearly proclaimed their own inferiority and my superiority. In this great crowd of men, among whom I hardly find any who are my equals, I alone am capable of administering public affairs. The people need me; they cannot get along without my services, while I am sufficient unto myself. They must therefore obey me for their own good, and I, by deigning to command them, create their happiness and well-being." There is enough here to turn anyone's head and corrupt the heart and make one swell with pride, isn't there? That is how power and the habit of commanding become a source of aberration, both intellectual and moral, even for the most intelligent and most virtuous of men.

They ordered the extermination of all minds they couldn't control

If knowledge is power and power corrupt, does knowledge corrupt?

I no longer give Power Point presentations, because I've come to believe that power corrupts, and Power Point corrupts absolutely.

It has been said that absolute power corrupts absolutely, but many it not be truer to say that to be absolutely powerful a man must first corrupt himself?

Power corrupts, and there is nothing more corrupting than power exercised in secret.

It is not power that corrupts but fear.

Power corrupts, and PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.

He suddenly understood that power and pleasure were keenly entwined. One could succumb to such power. It corrupts the foolish and tests the resolute.

Unlimited power corrupts the possessor.

He always says that those who control the present can rewrite the past.

When power corrupts, poetry cleanses

He who is given power will inevitably become an oppressor and exploiter of society.