Margaret MacMillan Quotes

Sadly, the truth is, there aren't many people who can be put in high positions who won't start thinking highly of themselves.

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

The worst thing that can happen for a writer is for a writer to start believing their own press. I think the industry, and the comics industry in particular, is littered with the bodies of writers who believed their own press. And you can see the moment they did, and then the work nosedives.

I find it alarming that people are so convinced they're the best at anything - presenting, hairdressing, getting dressed.

Power always sincerely, conscientiously, de très bon foi, believes itself right. Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak.

A professional is one who believes he has invented breathing.

It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion

When your persona begins to take over your music and becomes more important, you enter a dangerous place. Once you have people around you who don't question you, you're in a dangerous place.

With the success of the last three or so years, when a lot of people start treating you differently, there's a danger that you may start to think of yourself differently. You rely on your friends to say, 'Hey, wake up!'

Unlimited power corrupts the possessor.

Thinking you're a genius is death.

By my count, more business leaders have failed and derailed because of arrogance than any other character flaw.

The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.

Every one, more or less, loves Power, yet those who most wish for it are seldom the fittest to be trusted with it.

The story being told in 'Star Wars' is a classic one. Every few hundred years, the story is retold because we have a tendency to do the same things over and over again. Power corrupts, and when you're in charge, you start doing things that you think are right, but they're actually not.

One thing I hope I'll never be is drunk with my own power. And anybody who says I am will never work in this town again.

As far as big egos, there are definitely guys out there that just think God only knows what about themselves.

Once you begin to fall off the track and believe you breathe different air to everyone else, you're doomed; you're finished.

Self-conceit may lead to self destruction.

Stupidity combined with arrogance and a huge ego will get you a long way.

Such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves.

The worst thing you could ever get is people who think they know everything.

Two sentiments inherent in power never fail to produce this moral corruption; they are: contempt for the masses and the overestimation of one's own merits.

We thought because we had power, we had wisdom.

Since the origin of the world there has never been a king—even if you were to select the very best—who did not in some measure abuse his authority…