Top 1200 Absolute Power Quotes & Sayings

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.

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.

You know, 'power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely'? It's the same with powerlessness. Absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely. Einstein said everything had changed since the atom was split, except the way we think. We have to think anew.

Anyone who seeks power wants absolute power.

The Book of Job is advice on how to live in terms of the absolute power of nature. Leviathan is advice on how to live in terms of the absolute power of the state.

The Jesuits are a MILITARY organization, not a religious order. Their chief is a general of an army, not the mere father abbot of a monastery. And the aim of this organization is power - power in its most despotic exercise - absolute power, universal power, power to control the world by the volition of a single man. Jesuitism is the most absolute of despotisms - and at the same time the greatest and most enormous of abuses.

You can't relate to an absolute or it wouldn't be absolute, it would be relative. On an intellectual level, that's easy. However, you hear theologians in the theistic traditions talk about absolute God, and I saw God, or God spoke; speaking, being seen, these are all relational things. So what is absolute about such a being, wouldn't actually be absolute.

Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.

The statesman must think in terms of the national interest, conceived as power among other powers. The popular mind, unaware of the fine distinctions of the statesman's thinking, reasons more often than not in the simple moralistic and legalistic terms of absolute good and absolute evil.

Federalism is the best curb on democracy. [It] assigns limited powers to the central government. Thereby all power is limited. It excludes absolute power of the majority.

Ought to have a universal compulsory force to move and arrange each part in the manner best suited to the whole. Just as nature gives each man an absolute power over all his members, the social compact gives the body politic an absolute power over all its members." "We grant that each person alienates, by the social compact, only that portion of his power, his goods, and liberty whose use is of consequence to the community; but we must also grant that only the sovereign is the judge of what is of consequence.

If absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure?

Has justice ever grown in the soil of absolute power? Has not justice always come from the ... heart and spirit of men who resist power?

As in the Divine Right of Kings, hierarchies invest those who preside at the top of their pyramidal structure with absolute power to rule over the lesser ranks that spread down like a marble staircase to the broad foundation stones of those with no power at all.

The power to think as you wish to think is the only power over which you have absolute control.

The secret point of money and power in America is neither the things that money can buy nor power for power's sake but absolute personal freedom, mobility, privacy.

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

Well, I have an interest in power. I have an interest in people who find themselves in the position to exercise absolute power.

The last thing our founding fathers wanted was to be ruled by king with absolute power, and the next to the last thing they wanted was to be ruled by a temporary king with absolute powers for four years.

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.

For anyone with the traits - of feeling himself victimized, of seeking to be the strongman who resolves everything, yet sees truth only through his own self and negates all other truth outside of it - is bound to become more malignant when he has power. Power then breeds an intensification of all this 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.

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.

Absolute power is absolute power, no matter what it's called.

To try to reform all the power structures at once would leave us with no power structure to use in our project. In any case, we will be able to see that absolute moral renewal could be attempted only by an absolute power and that a tyrannous force such as this must destroy the whole moral life of man, not renew it.

Writing might be unalloyed joy, were it not for the fact that power is always shadowed by responsibility. Thankfully, the absolute power that writers have is not weighted down with absolute responsibility. It can neither be suppressed nor diminished, except by choice.

No country can be called free which is governed by an absolute power; and it matters not whether it be an absolute royal power or an absolute legislative power, as the consequences will be the same to the people.

The mistakes (of leaders) are amplified by the numbers who follow them without question. Charismatic leaders tend to build up followings, power structures and these power structures tend to be taken over by people who are corruptible. I don't think that the old saw about 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely' is accurate: I think power attracts the corruptible.

Freedom means freedom from forces and circumstances which would turn man into a thing, which would impose on man the passivity and predictability of matter. By this test, absolute power is the manifestation most inimical to human uniqueness. Absolute power wants to turn people into malleable clay.

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.

If there is no absolute moral standard, then one cannot say in a final sense that anything is right or wrong. By absolute we mean that which always applies, that which provides a final or ultimate standard. There must be an absolute if there are to be morals, and there must be an absolute if there are to be real values. If there is no absolute beyond man's ideas, then there is no final appeal to judge between individuals and groups whose moral judgments conflict. We are merely left with conflicting opinions.

Turn yourself inside out. Live with absolute certainty that you have the power to create anything that you desire-anything!-because the power you need is the power of the Universe flowing through you.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Well, I have an interest in power. I have an interest in people who find themselves in the position to exercise absolute power

We have all been told that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I have long thought this is nonsense.

No one can hold absolute power for long, controlled power endures.

Anarchy is the stepping stone to absolute power.

I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they do no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way against holders of power...power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it, except upon the side of mercy.

The threat to change Senate rules is a raw abuse of power and will destroy the very checks and balances our founding fathers put in place to prevent absolute power by any one branch of government.

I don't actually subscribe to the view that all power corrupts. But absolute power - when secured on the back of massive parliamentary majorities, which don't reflect the balance of political opinion in the country - can corrupt absolutely.

It is inevitable, that eventually the people will demand absolute security from the state... And absolute security is absolute slavery.

Absolute knowledge is only possible when you know the Absolute Truth and to have the Absolute Truth you have to go to the Absolute Being within you which is your Spirit. So, it gives you the truth, it gives you the collective consciousness. The main thing is that you become extremely peaceful personality, you become peace, you emit peace.

The sword is the axis of the world and its power is absolute.

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

Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.

Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.

Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and I found that out when I was Attorney General in Massachusetts.

Absolute power demoralizes.

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.

I belive power can be used for good, I don't think every form of power is absolute evil. I wish I would have stepped in, and I really regret it. And that's why I really encourage young people who are organizing to speak up.

In passing, we should note this curious mark of our own age: the only absolute allowed is the absolute insistence that there is no absolute.

Numerous politicians have seized absolute power and muzzled the press. Never in history has the press seized absolute power and muzzled the politicians.

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The secret point of money and power in America is neither the things that money can buy nor power for power's sake... but absolute personal freedom, mobility, privacy. It is the instinct which drove America to the Pacific, all through the nineteenth century, the desire to be able to find a restaurant open in case you want a sandwich, to be a free agent, live by one's own rules.

There are similarities between absolute power and absolute faith: a demand for absolute obedience, a readiness to attempt the impossible, a bias for simple solutionsto cut the knot rather than unravel it, the viewing of compromise as surrender. Both absolute power and absolute faith are instruments of dehumanization. Hence, absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.

Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.

The humorous man recognizes that absolute purity, absolute justice, absolute logic and perfection are beyond human achievement and that men have been able to live happily for thousands of years in a state of genial frailty.

No power was total, no power permanent, no power absolute.

Absolute honesty is as absurd an abstraction as an absolute temperature or an absolute value.