Thomas Jefferson Quotes

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

Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.

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

If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.

I call the discourse of power any discourse that engenders blame, hence guilt, in its recipient.

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

You carry forever the fingerprint that comes from being under someone's thumb.

And this is the Anarchistic definition of the State: the embodiment of the principle of invasion in an individual, or a band of individuals, assuming to act as representatives or masters of the entire people within a given area.

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

… the tools of despotism and corruption

No man ever ruled other men for their own good.

People who are divided are easier to control.

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

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

Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.

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

The concept of power we admire is power over someone else.

Fear is the foundation of most governments.

Power is what men seek and any group that gets it will abuse it.

The ruling idea of the politician - stated rather bluntly - is that those who are opposed to him exist for the purpose of being made to serve his ends, if he can get power enough in his hands to force these ends upon them.

Power tends to get confused with repression.

Powerlessness corrupts: absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely

In order to obtain and hold power a man must love it. Thus the effort to get it is not likely to be coupled with goodness, but with the opposite qualities of pride, craft and cruelty.

Power, whether vested in many or a few, is ever grasping, and like the grave, cries, "Give, give!

Powerlessness also corrupts.