Jean Baudrillard Quotes

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.

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 shortest way to change a radical into a conservative, a liberal into a tyrant, a man into a beast, is to give him power over his fellows.

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities.

With people in high office, the old - you go into the extreme, which is absolute power and absolute power corrupts.

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

There is no evidence to support the belief that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev ever questioned Americas power. He questioned only the President's John F. Kennedys readiness to use it. Elie Abel, The Missile Crisis (1966) Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

What is true is that the idea of power corrupts. Power corrupts most rapidly those who believe in it, and it is they who will want it most. Obviously, our democratic system tends to give power to those who hunger for it and gives every opportunity to those who don't want power to avoid getting it. Not a very satisfactory arrangement if power corrupts those who believe in it and want it.

It is not the misuse of power that is evil; the very existence of power is an evil.

Sex and money always prowl in the penumbra of power.

Once you've built the big machinery of political power, remember you won't always be the one to run it.

As a young man, you're dazzled by the power of the White House and all that. But power tends to corrupt.

The representatives of people become uncrowned kings and queens once they get into Parliament.

The problem with Russia is not corruption per se, or even Putin per se. Russian government is not corrupt because Vladimir Putin has absolute power. Russian government has been corrupt and will always be as long as anyone has absolute power.

Any political or philosophical agenda can and will be perverted by power and/or fear.

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

The attraction of power is heady, addictive. And as we know from real life, it can be a disease. A horrific disease.

That's what Judith Herman is saying, and she's absolutely right. Power then breeds an intensification of all because the power can never be absolute power - to some extent it's stymied - but the isolation while in power becomes even more dangerous. Think of it as a vicious circle. The power intensifies these tendencies and the tendencies become more dangerous because of the power.

What worries me most about Trump, other than all of the other crazy things, is that I believe that he wants power and I believe from my point of view that power corrupts, and that the whole purpose of our founding fathers and America was to contain power.

The probability of the people in power being individuals who would dislike the possession and exercise of power is on a level with the probability that an extremely tender-hearted person would get the job of whipping-master in a slave plantation.

Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect all who seek it ... We should grant power over our affairs only to those who are reluctant to hold it and then only under conditions that increase that reluctance.

Man is not by nature a tyrant, but becomes a tyrant by power conferred on him.

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.

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.

Power is what men seek, and any group that gets it will abuse it. It is the same story.