Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely Quotes

Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.

If absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure?

I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they do no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way against holders of power...power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

If absolute power corrupts absolutely, where does that leave God??

Great men are almost always bad men.

The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority.

Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.

Power doesn't always corrupt. Power can cleanse. What I believe is always true about power is that power always reveals.

Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.

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

Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes.

The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.

Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority...

I no longer give Power Point presentations, because I've come to believe that power corrupts, and Power Point corrupts absolutely.

Powerlessness corrupts: absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely.

Power corrupts, but lack of power corrupts absolutely.

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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?

Power corrupts, and PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.

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.

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

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.

Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.

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.

Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.

Absolute power, as we have always known, corrupts absolutely;

it corrupts because it does not do the trick for the individual. Reality always creeps in--the reality of our helplessness and our mortality; the reality that, despite our reach for the stars, a creaturely fate awaits us.

The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its antihumanity.

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.

Absolute truisms rot brains absolutely.

[...]'Power corrupts' is useless as a tool for understanding the past, and gives us nothing as a guide to action.

A small amount of power corrupts a small man absolutely.

A little knowledge is dangerous to a little man. To a great man only great knowledge is dangerous.

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.

There are similarities between absolute power and absolute faith: a demand for absolute obedience, a readiness to attempt the impossible, a bias for simple solutionsto cut the knot rather than unravel it, the viewing of compromise as surrender. Both absolute power and absolute faith are instruments of dehumanization. Hence, absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Power corrupts, but lack of power corrupts absolutely.

With people in high office, the old - you go into the extreme, which is absolute power and absolute power corrupts.