George Washington Quotes

Cheney, Rumsfeld - they were Shakespearean in their attitude of impunity.

When you're convinced that you're right and you believe that you have the license to do anything because you're right, you can be bossy and you can be dangerous. You can be oppressive. You can be a tyrant.

A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired. This maxim, drawn from the experience of all ages, makes it the height of folly to intrust any set of men with power which is not under every possible control; perpetual strides are made after more as long as there is any part withheld.

Individuals achieve optimal stupidity when they're given substantial powers while being insulated from the results of their actions.

A man in power, once becoming obnoxious, his acts, good or bad, will work out his ruin.

It is a universal principle that whenever one refuses to use his God-given powers, these powers decay and perish.

Power, carried to extremes, is always liable to reaction.

He who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation.

Beware the abuse of Power. Both by those we disagree with, as well as those we may agree with

Managing by trying to be liked is the path to ruin.

Th abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Prudence is a duty which we owe ourselves, and if we will be so much our own enemies as to neglect it, we are not to wonder if the world is deficient in discharging their duty to us; for when a man lays the foundation of his own ruin, others too often are apt to build upon it.

Knowledge, having irritated and stimulated our appetite for power, will lead us inexorably to our ruin.

Fire is always ready to burn the hand it warms.

All power corrupts but some must govern.

That anyone who possesses power has a tendency to abuse it is an eternal truth. They tend to go as far as the barriers will allow.

Unlimited power is worse for the average person than unlimited alcohol; and the resulting intoxication is more damaging for others. Very few have not deteriorated when given absolute dominion. It is worse for the governor than for the governed.

If you can't trust a Methodist with absolute power to arrest people and not have to say why, then whom can you trust?

Remember: courage, unused, diminishes. Commitment, unexercised, wanes. Love, unshared, dissipates.

Where is he who seeing a thousand men useless and unhappy, and making the whole region forlorn by their inaction, and conscious himself of possessing the faculty they want, does not hear his call to go and be their king?

Unused creativity is not benign.

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 fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired.

Experience constantly proves that every man who has power is impelled to abuse it; he goes on till he is pulled up by some limits. Who would say it! virtue even has need of limits.