Abigail Adams Quotes

That which killed my late master, & so many of his predecessors. The responsibility of arbitrary power.

Tyrants seldom want pretexts.

It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power.

Any excuse will serve a tyrant.

Your empire is now like a tyranny: it may have been wrong to take it; it is certainly dangerous to let it go.

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

Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.

The tyrant is only the slave turned inside out.

Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.

A dictator keeps control and leads. A tyrant is someone selfish who destroys.

Power is always right, weakness always wrong. Power is always insolent and despotic.

Tyranny is always better organized than freedom.

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

Whoever is new to power is always harsh.

The splendid empire of Charles the Fifth was erected upon the grave of liberty.

I think that many people in history who had power were bumped off because they had power.

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.

Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.

But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.

What I fear most is power with impunity. I fear abuse of power, and the power to abuse.

Feelings of marginalization and cries of separation are symptomatic of countries where rulers find power sweet and intoxicating, where power is coveted, and when acquired, painstakingly guarded.

If you give human beings power over others, their natural tendency is to be fascists.

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

Power corrupts; but absolute power is really neat.

Power tends to corrupt if you're there too long.