Quotes on Power Corrupts

Great men are almost always bad men.

Power corrupts, and there is nothing more corrupting than power exercised in secret.

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

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.

The fight for justice against corruption is never easy. It never has been and never will be. It exacts a toll on our self, our families, our friends, and especially our children. In the end, I believe, as in my case, the price we pay is well worth holding on to our dignity.

Now more than ever the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption.

There is nothing more corrupting, nothing more destructive of the noblest and finest feelings of our nature, than the exercise of unlimited power.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end...liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition...The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. ~ Every class is unfit to govern ... Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

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.

If power corrupts, the reverse is also true; persecution corrupts the victims though perhaps in subtler and more tragic ways.

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.

Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.

Crime is contagious....if the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law.

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.

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

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities.

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.