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.
The greater the power, the more need there is for transparency, because if the power is abused, the result can be so enormous. On the other hand, those people who do not have power, we mustn't reduce their power even more by making them yet more transparent.
A man in a desert can hold absence in his cupped hands knowing it is something more than water. There is a plant whose heart, if one cuts it out is replaced with fluid containing herbal goodness. Every morning one can drink the liquid amount of the missing heart.
I try to very hard to avoid a situation where I would be eating cat or dog; I've managed to gracefully avoid that. It's hypocritical of me and an arbitrary line, but one that I have managed to avoid crossing.
I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to condone any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, and in my way of life. We cannot support any act of killing; no killing can be justified. But not to kill is not enough ... If in your thinking you allow the killing to go on, you also break this precept. We must be determined not to condone killing, even in our minds.
I went to live on a kibbutz, and I'd idealized the world of collective, agrarian work, where everyone was equal, everyone contributed, that all this awful European intellectual stuff just fell away.
He who is mistaken in an action which he sincerely believes to be right may be an enemy, but retains our esteem.
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