Eric Hoffer Quotes
Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.
Eric Hoffer, 1902-1983, Philosopher and Critic The Passionate State of Mind, 1954
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.
Perhaps the most famous quotation in all of Political Science is this one. What is fascinating is that 74 years earlier, Shelly, the most famous of the English Poets expressed the same idea in one of his great poems. See {627920}. The last sentence of this quote is often excluded.
This is a variation of the famous Lord Acton quote {292904}.
He was expelled from Parliament for such.
Eric Hoffer was an American moral and social philosopher. He was the author of ten books and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February 1983. His first book, The True Believer (1951), was widely recognized as a classic, receiving critical acclaim from both scholars and laymen, although Hoffer believed that The Ordeal of Change was his finest work.
