If absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure?
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power 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.
I don't actually subscribe to the view that all power corrupts. But absolute power - when secured on the back of massive parliamentary majorities, which don't reflect the balance of political opinion in the country - can corrupt absolutely.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and I found that out when I was Attorney General in Massachusetts.
There is nothing more corrupting, nothing more destructive of the noblest and finest feelings of our nature, than the exercise of unlimited power.
Power doesn't corrupt people, people corrupt power.
Power is always a corrupting influence.
The possession of arbitrary power has always, the world over, tended irresistibly to destroy humane sensibility, magnanimity, and truth.
Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.