Corrupt Power Quotes

There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. ~ Lord Acton

We're taught Lord Acton's axiom: all power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. I believed that when I started these books, but I don't believe it's always true any more. Power doesn't always corrupt. Power can cleanse. What I believe is always true about power is that power always reveals. ~ Robert Caro

The force of love, the force of reunion is unstoppable. ~ Charles Eisenstein

Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible ~ George Orwell

Power has always corrupted, my dear. Even the promise of power. It is a hard thing to look at through the fence for hundreds of years without wondering what it would be like on the other side. ~ Ally Carter

Great men are almost always bad men. ~ John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

Power doesn't corrupt people, people corrupt power. ~ William Gaddis

Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power. ~ Eric Hoffer

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power. ~ George Bernard Shaw

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

African economists have argued that corruption - not Western colonialism, not lack of Western aid - is why Africa hasn't escaped poverty. These economists have begged Western countries to stop giving monetary aid to corrupt African countries because nearly all the money goes to corrupt government officials and thereby further increases their corrupt power. Meanwhile, in Europe, North America, Japan, Singapore, and a handful of other countries, corruption is far more likely to be prosecuted and therefore far less prevalent. That is a major reason for their continuing prosperity. ~ Dennis Prager

Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn't touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror
of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision
he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath:
The horror! The horror! ~ Joseph Conrad

To be white in the Caribbean is to have money, power, and the freedom to do anything or nothing - it is, in many cases, to occupy the top rung of society. ~ Sharon Hurley Hall

The power of belief alone could change the course of history. ~ Ted Dekker

My hope and prayer for all who read this book is a reformation - that an army of African-American men will make their way back into the church, back into the leadership of the church, back into leading a change in the church to be and do what it is called to be and do, so that we may have power to do good for our people, and people all over the world, in a way that no government or service organization has been or will be able to do, and that no one will be able to take away. ~ Eric Redmond

After being rationed to a single ball, a whole box of them gave me a delightful feeling of sudden wealth. French politicians must have a similar sensation when elected to high office and permitted to dip into the chateaux and limousines and government-issue caviar. No wonder they cling to power long after they should be tucked away in an old folks' home. I'd do the same. ~ Peter Mayle

The real power of the Buddha was that he had so much love. He saw people trapped in their notions of small separate self, feeling guilty or proud of that self, and he offered revolutionary teachings that resounded like a lion's roar, like a great rising tide, helping people to wake up and break free from the prison of ignorance. ~ Nhat Hanh

The enemy uses those things your insecure about. Free yourself and take your power back by being secure in who you are - flaws and all. ~ Yvonne Pierre

By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet
did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods;
since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage,
but music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
and his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music. ~ William Shakespeare

Fireheart, her mother had called her.
Not for her power. The name had never once been about her power. ~ Sarah J. Maas

Individualism has come in for an enormous amount of criticism over the years. It still does. It is widely assumed to be synonymous with selfishness ... But the main reason why so many people in power have always disliked individualism is because it is individualists who are ever keenest to prevent the abuse of authority. ~ Margaret Thatcher

He invites the commission of a crime who does not forbid it, when it is in his power to do so. ~ Seneca The Younger

The more grateful you are for everything good that comes into your life, the more closely you place your mind in contact with that power in life that can produce greater good. ~ Christian D. Larson

Zen is a study. It's a discipline. It involves the active use of will to make things happen or not happen. These are the secrets of power. ~ Frederick Lenz

The power of your intentions has a greater impact on your life than your actions. ~ Debasish Mridha

There is a vortex of energy at the bottom of Walden Pond. That's where the inter-dimensional opening is. As people swim in Old Walden Pond, it soothes them, it renews them. It's a little bit like the pool in Cocoon - I suppose, any power spot is. ~ Frederick Lenz

Neither mystic insights, nor philosophic wisdom, nor creative power can be provided by pill or injection. The psycho-pharmacist cannot add to the faculties of the brain-but he can, at best, eliminate obstructions and blockages which impede their proper use. He cannot aggrandise us-but he can, within limits, normalise us; he cannot put additional circuits into the brain, but he can, again within limits, improve the co-ordination between existing ones, attenuate conflicts, prevent the blowing of fuses, and ensure a steady power supply. That is all the help we can ask for-but if we were able to obtain it, the benefits to mankind would be incalculable; it would be the 'Final Revolution' in a sense opposite to Huxley's-the break-through from maniac to man. ~ Arthur Koestler

Once you understand that God has made your mouth like a sharp sword (Isaiah 49:2), you will speak the Scriptures not only to tell stories but to transform the world around you. Perhaps that's why people said that Jesus' teaching was different than the teaching of the scribes, because he taught with authority. Why? He knew the power of the rhema words. ~ Diego Pineda

In Koln, a town of monks and bones,
And pavement fang'd with murderous stones,
And rags and hags, and hideous wenches,
I counted two-and-seventy stenches,
All well defined, and several stinks!
Ye nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks,
The River Rhine, it is well known,
Doth wash your city of Cologne;
But tell me, nymphs! what power divine
Shall henceforth whash the river Rhine. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Again, I am awed, overwhelmed by the strength and emotion conveyed in the human voice. For the first time since this phenomenon started happening to me, I begin to understand the power it could have and why our ancestors mourned its loss. Every sound around me - the renewed pattering of rain, the wind in the leaves - all of is suddenly has a new meaning. I can see how these sounds don't interfere with the world so much as enhance it. The scope and potential are huge. It's like having a new color to paint with. ~ Richelle Mead

That Christian faith is about belief is a rather odd notion, when you think about it. It suggests that what God really cares about is the beliefs in our heads - as if "believing the right things" is what God is most looking for, as if having "correct beliefs" is what will save us. And if you have "incorrect beliefs," you may be in trouble. It's remarkable to think that God cares so much about "beliefs."

Moreover, when you think about it, faith as belief is relatively impotent, relatively powerless. You can believe all the right things and still be in bondage. You can believe all the right things and still be miserable. You can believe all the right things and still be relatively unchanged. Believing a set of claims to be true has very little transforming power. ~ Marcus J. Borg

By their own admission, leaders of the Republican Revolution of 1994 think their greatest mistake was overlooking the power of the veto. They gave the impression they were somehow in charge when they weren't. ~ Mitch McConnell

The chokecherries -- gregarious and chatty, perched on their branches calling out to everyone to strip them off. Wild plums -- sarcastic and timid at the same time -- called out from behind their leaves only to retreat into the brushy brambles where they lived. Raspberries and blackberries -- royal and corrupt princes -- braved it out in the full sun of forest clearings. Gooseberries and huckleberries -- reticent, tradition-bound and private -- lived on unbothered in the swamps. Cranberries and pincherries (those party-goers) draped themselves over the furniture of the branches and invited all passerby, birds and people, to join the party. The blueberries and wintergreen grew undisturbed -- calmly bourgeois -- in the carpeted hush of the big woods. ~ David Treuer

Structural racism amounts collective effects of bias. It's the kind of racism that has the power to drastically impact people's life chances. ~ Reni Eddo-Lodge

Far beyond your intellect, far beyond your understanding, lies inexhaustible knowledge and wealth, strength and power, peace and joy. Do not use your intellect to find the answers for God and his manifestations. Everything is God. ~ Vishnudevananda Saraswati

Without the changed conditions, the product of a lost war, a revolution and a pervasive sense of national humiliation, Hitler would have remained a nobody. His main ability by far, as he came to realise during the course of 1919, was that in the prevailing circumstances he could inspire an audience which shared his basic political feelings, by the way he spoke, by the force of his rhetoric, by the very power of his prejudice, by the conviction he conveyed that there was a way out of Germany's plight. ~ Ian Kershaw

It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself. ~ Epicurus

Crystal ball and candle light, I want your dance tonight. Show me the power of love as we stand together in the middle of the night. ~ Santosh Kalwar

The power to gossip is more democratically distributed than power, property, and income, and, certainly, than the freedom to speak openly. ~ James C. Scott

Some coaches are on power trips. I've never needed somebody to tell me I'm not working hard enough. ~ Mark Warkentin

All great leaders find a sense of balance through their levels of reception. For instance, those who support a leader may soften him, those who ignore him may challenge him, and those who oppose him may stroke his ego. ~ Criss Jami

If you were handed power on a plate you'd be left fighting over a plate. ~ Tom Stoppard

We've the right to dream, and that, I suppose, is the magic's greatest power: the notion that we can pick possibility from the trees like ripe fruit. ~ Libba Bray

The only reason investors haven't run screaming from an obviously corrupt financial marketplace is because the government has gone to such extraordinary lengths to sell the narrative that the problems of 2008 have been fixed. ~ Matt Taibbi

I always loved running ... it was something you could do by yourself, and under your own power. You could go in any direction, fast or slow as you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs. ~ Jesse Owens

We're so used to thinking that vitality lies in displays of power, but in truth our tenderness and basic sensitivity possess a much greater strength. ~ Brooks Palmer