Francois Rene de Chateaubriand Quotes

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.

If, as is natural, you focus on the corruption and on those threatened institutions that are trying to prevent change - even though they don't really know what they're trying to prevent - then you can get pessimistic.

But doesn't it seem like Chelsea's sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?

You can't trust anybody with power.

Outsiders tend to be the first to recognize the inadequacies of our social institutions. But, precisely because they are outsiders, they are usually in a poor position to fix them.

The world is not fair, and often fools, cowards, liars and the selfish hide in high places.

The more highly public life is organized the lower does its morality sink.

Whenever there are some who have more opportunities than others, this feeds corruption.

In every truth, the beneficiaries of a system cannot be expected to destroy it.

I have often noticed that a bribe has that effect - it changes a relation. The man who offers a bribe gives away a little of his own importance; the bribe once accepted, he becomes the inferior, like a man who has paid for a woman.

In the end, glorification of splendid underdogs is nothing other than glorification of the splendid system that makes them so.

Occupants of public offices love power and are prone to abuse it.

A heavy aristocracy and corruption are two bridles in the mouths of a people which will prevent them from making any effectual efforts against their masters.

What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility—the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.

The apologist for oppression becomes himself the oppressor. To palliate crime is to be guilty of its perpetuation.

Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist he goes haywire. I've found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes. Look at the Congressional attitude on DPs — and they all come from DPs.

Sex and money always prowl in the penumbra of power.

Yes, SIRE, you are being misled, the goodwill of princes is being abused; even the Nobility itself is in the wrong.

In rivers and bad governments, the lightest things swim to the top

The problem is never the populist’s imperfect capacity to represent the people’s will; rather, it’s always the institutions that somehow produced the wrong outcomes. So even if they look properly democratic, there must be something going on behind the scenes that allows corrupt elites to continue to betray the people. Conspiracy theories are thus not a curious addition to populist rhetoric; they are rooted in and emerge from the very logic of populism itself.

Misuse of privilege is seen as the worst sin.

Harvey Weinstein reveals how the most powerful men in this country have tendrils in to every kind of institution.

The system under which we live is owned and operated by people who do not deserve to run the world.

Different identity groups hold specific levels of power over others when their battles play out in the media. To wit: Black beats white. Gay beats white. Black beats gay.

This is an important thing: People who live in the mainstream and the status quo think that everyone else is there to serve them.