Harry Shearer Quotes

You can't trust anybody with power.

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…

Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

Unlimited power corrupts the possessor.

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

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

Powerlessness corrupts: absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely

I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature, and that power whether vested in many or few is ever grasping, and like the grave, cries, 'Give, give.'

... all of our human experience shows that no one with absolute power can be trusted to give it up even in part.

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

You know, "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"? It's the same with powerlessness. Absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely.

Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted; and pure love without power is destroyed.

Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who posses it; and this I know, my lords: that where law ends, tyranny begins.

It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.

To assume all the powers is not good for anybody. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. All those experiments have a bad ending.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

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

I believe the root of all evil is abuse of power.

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

Democratic institutions are based on a reality of human nature: that those with power, however benign or even noble their intentions, will do what they can to keep it.

It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power.

Powerlessness also corrupts.

Suspect power more than vice.

Power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will be ever liable to abuse.