Quotes on Corrupt Power

Great men are almost always bad men.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

Power-worship blurs political judgment because it leads, almost unavoidably, to the belief that present trends will continue. Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.

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.

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose.

Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.

There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.

Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.