There is nothing more corrupting, nothing more destructive of the noblest and finest feelings of our nature, than the exercise of unlimited power.
Interpretation
Unlimited power can corrupt individuals, leading to the destruction of their noble qualities and feelings.
The quote by William Henry Harrison warns about the dangers of unlimited power, suggesting that when individuals hold absolute authority, it can lead to moral degradation. This unchecked power often corrupts the individual, suppressing their noblest qualities and transforming them into something destructive, highlighting a fundamental truth about human nature—that power can alter one's character and intentions.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about political corruption.
We admit of no government by divine right, believing that so far as power is concerned the Beneficent Creator has made no distinction amongst men; that all are upon an equality, and that the only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed.
The only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed.
No one can occupy your generosity except you. Who can occupy your patience when impatience roars through you? Who except you can choose not to act with judgment when all of your thoughts are judgmental? Your life is yours to live, no matter how you choose to live it. When you do not think about how you intend to live it, it lives you.
True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it.
One could say, with a little exaggeration, that the persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is.
There exists a creature which is perfectly harmless; when it passes before your eyes you scarcely notice it and forget it again immediately. But as soon as it invisibly gets somehow into your ears, it develops there, it hatches, as it were, and cases have been known where it was penetrated even into the brain and has thriven devastatingly in that organ, like those pneumococci in dogs that gain entrance through the nose.This creature is one's neighbor.
There are reveries so deep, reveries which help us descend so deeply within ourselves that they rid us of our history. They liberate us from our name. These solitudes of today return us to the original solitudes.
Your honesty is not to be based either on religion or policy. Both your religion and policy must be based on it. Your honesty must be based, as the sun is, in vacant heaven; poised, as the lights in the firmament, which have rule over the day and over the night.
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