Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely Quotes by Lord Acton, Robert Caro, Frank Herbert, George Deacon, William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, Harry Shearer and many others.
There is no evidence to support the belief that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev ever questioned Americas power. He questioned only the President’s John F. Kennedys readiness to use it. Elie Abel, The Missile Crisis (1966) Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
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.
Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.
The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority.
The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.
If absolute power corrupts absolutely, where does that leave God??
Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.
If absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure?
You know, ‘power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’? It’s the same with powerlessness. Absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely. Einstein said everything had changed since the atom was split, except the way we think. We have to think anew.
The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.
Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority…
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?
To assume all the powers is not good for anybody. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. All those experiments have a bad ending.
Great men are almost always bad men.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely; and if you surrender your personal responsibility to a government which promises to take care of you, they will only take care of themselves.
It’s very hard to operate on a general philosophy of power. They say that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, but I don’t agree with that. I think you have to be corrupted to be corrupted by power.
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