Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Great men are almost always bad men.
Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority...
If absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure?
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.
Power doesn't always corrupt. Power can cleanse. What I believe is always true about power is that power always reveals.
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.
Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.
The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern: every class is unfit to govern.
If absolute power corrupts absolutely, where does that leave God??
Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.
What I worry about would be that you essentially have two chambers, the House and the Senate, but you have simply, majoritarian, absolute power on either side. And that's just not what the founders intended.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.
Well, I have an interest in power. I have an interest in people who find themselves in the position to exercise absolute power
God cannot approve of a system of servitude, in which the master is guilty of assuming absolute power - of assuming God's place and relation towards his fellow-men.
I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they do no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way against holders of power...power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
We're taught Lord Acton's axiom: all power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. I believed that when I started these books, but I don't believe it's always true any more. Power doesn't always corrupt. Power can cleanse. What I believe is always true about power is that power always reveals.
Numerous politicians have seized absolute power and muzzled the press. Never in history has the press seized absolute power and muzzled the politicians.
or simply:
