P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history mankind has been bullied by scum.

How many, even of the better sort, would choose to be slaves to those above them, provided they might exercise an arbitrary and tyrannical rule over all below them?

You can't trust anybody with power.

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

All authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and it degrades those over whom it is exercised.

There is no more contemptible poison than power over one's fellow men.

Power corrupts; but absolute power is really neat.

Power wears out those who do not have it.

You can be a control freak only when you have weak people around you.

There is nothing more corrupting, nothing more destructive of the noblest and finest feelings of our nature, than the exercise of unlimited power.

There's a certain amount of tyranny in all of us to some extent, and in some people it's much more developed than in others. It's a different balance which makes us all different.

Unlimited power corrupts the possessor.

The average European does not seem to feel free until he succeeds in enslaving and oppressing others.

The scum of the People are most Tyrannical when they get the Power, and treat their Betters with the greatest Insolence.

The natural course of power is to make the many slaves to the few.

Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.

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

I think the greatest lesson that power has to teach us is, once you've had it, once you are a part of it, you're never free.

I think it's a dangerous thing for anyone to have power over other people.

Man is not by nature a tyrant, but becomes a tyrant by power conferred on him.

Slaves would be tyrants were the chance theirs.

The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.

Power not only corrupts he who wields the power but those who submit to it. Those who grovel at the feet of power betray their fellows to hide themselves behind the cloak of submission. It is an evil thing.

It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable.