Gertrude Himmelfarb Quotes

Absolute power should never be trusted to man. It has perverted the wisest heads, and corrupted the best hearts in the world. I should be afraid to commit my property, liberty and life to a body of angels for one whole year.

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and I found that out when I was Attorney General in Massachusetts.

Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.

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.

Arbitrary power is the natural object of temptation to a prince, as wine and women to a young fellow, or a bribe to a judge, or avarice to old age.

If liberty is not entire it is not liberty.

Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.

Unlimited power corrupts the possessor.

Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who posses it; and this I know, my lords: that where law ends, tyranny begins.

Every tyrant who has lived has believed in freedom for himself.

To assume all the powers is not good for anybody. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. All those experiments have a bad ending.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

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.

Too much liberty corrupts us all.

We wish to work in total freedom.

Power corrupts; but absolute power is really neat.

The whole administrative, judicial, and legislative machinery obeys a single will, the caprice of General Porfirio Diaz, who during his long administration has shown that the principal motive that guides him is to maintain himself in power and at any cost.

Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.

Power is always dangerous. It attracts the worst and corrupts the best..

The love of power, like the love of money, increases with the possession of it; and we know in what ruin these baneful passions have involved human societies in all ages when they have been let loose and suffered to rage uncontrolled - There is no restraint like the pervading eye of the virtuous citizens.

It's man's nature to abuse knowledge and power, be it in the realm of science, government, or Wall Street. Take God out of the picture, and you have real trouble.

It is not crazy to think that powerful people do some pretty horrible things. And maybe they get out of hand. Maybe it just gets away from them. It snowballs.

Nothing's as dangerous as power with impunity.

All weakness tends to corrupt, and impotence corrupts absolutely.

Power dements even more than it corrupts, lowering the guard of foresight and raising the haste of action.