Franz Grillparzer Quotes

Power has long been regarded as morally corrosive, and we often suspect the intentions of those who seek it.

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

Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race

You can't trust anybody with power.

In the United States, though power corrupts, the expectation of power paralyzes.

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

Unlimited power corrupts the possessor.

Most people who get into power in the western world start with great intentions, but slowly they all become entrapped and hung by their own petard.

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

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

It's said that 'power corrupts', but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible.

So easily do weak men put in high positions turn villains

He who is the most strenuous for the rights of the people, when vested with power is as eager after for the prerogatives of government.

Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.

Power corrupts; but absolute power is really neat.

Sex and money always prowl in the penumbra of power.

My three years in politics was very instructive about the way in which the appetite for political power can destroy a human mind, destroy principles and values, and transform people into little monsters.

The more power you have, the more surely it will be taken from you before you are ready to give it up.

Power is what spoils people. Yes, it seems to me that the seeking after power is the great danger and the great corruptor of mankind.

It's very hard to operate on a general philosophy of power. They say that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, but I don't agree with that. I think you have to be corrupted to be corrupted by power.

It's human nature to abuse power, no matter who you are.

Power is supposed to be so corrupt. I don't think it's so much corrupt, in the usual sense of the word, as stupid and unrealistic. The more power a person has, the further he gets from reality.

The longer a politician bears power, the more he is controlled by that power.

If power corrupts, weakness in the seat of power, with its constant necessity of deals and bribes and compromising arrangements,corrupts even more.

Arbitrary power is the natural object of temptation to a prince, as wine and women to a young fellow, or a bribe to a judge, or avarice to old age.