Benjamin Rush 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.
Benjamin Rush, 1745-1813, Physician & member of the Continental Congress, Surgeon General of the Continental Army and Treasurer of the U.S. Mint, Observations on the Government of Pennsylvania, 1777
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.
Perhaps the most famous quotation in all of Political Science is this one. What is fascinating is that 74 years earlier, Shelly, the most famous of the English Poets expressed the same idea in one of his great poems. See {627920}. The last sentence of this quote is often excluded.
Urging a presidential veto of a tough ethics law prohibiting unethical behavior on the part of government officials:
Iturbide, known also as Agustin I, was the first Emperor of Mexico who was executed by a firing squad.
Arguing the need to limit the power of the legislature:
Benjamin Rush was a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence and a civic leader in Philadelphia, where he was a physician, politician, social reformer, humanitarian, and educator and the founder of Dickinson College. Rush attended the Continental Congress. His later self-description there was: "He aimed right." He served as Surgeon General of the Continental Army and became a professor of chemistry, medical theory, and clinical practice at the University of Pennsylvania.
