“The problem is that too often the only people who can act don’t want change. Power doesn’t so much corrupt as it breeds conservatism.”

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, The Engines of God (1994), Chapter 25 (p. 356)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The problem is that too often the only people who can act don’t want change. Power doesn’t so much corrupt as it breeds…" by Jack McDevitt?
Jack McDevitt photo
Jack McDevitt 125
American novelist, Short story writer 1935

Related quotes

Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Sigmund Freud photo
Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo

“The agitator who preaches hatred and practices slander and untruthfulness, and the visionary who promises perfection and accomplishes only destruction, are the worst enemies of reform; and the man of great wealth who accumulates and uses his wealth without regard to ethical standards, who profits by and breeds corruption, and robs and swindles others, is the very worst enemy of property, the very worst enemy of conservatism, the very worst enemy of those “business interests” that only too often regard him with mean admiration and heatedly endeavor to shield him from the consequences of his iniquity.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)
Context: Violent excess is sure to provoke violent reaction; and the worst possible policy for our country would be one of violent oscillation between reckless upsetting of property rights, and unscrupulous greed manifested under pretense of protecting those rights. The agitator who preaches hatred and practices slander and untruthfulness, and the visionary who promises perfection and accomplishes only destruction, are the worst enemies of reform; and the man of great wealth who accumulates and uses his wealth without regard to ethical standards, who profits by and breeds corruption, and robs and swindles others, is the very worst enemy of property, the very worst enemy of conservatism, the very worst enemy of those “business interests” that only too often regard him with mean admiration and heatedly endeavor to shield him from the consequences of his iniquity.

Kim Stanley Robinson photo

“It was not power that corrupted people, but fools who corrupted power.”

Nadia Chernyshevski
Green Mars (1993)

Eric Hoffer photo

“It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Source: The Ordeal of Change (1963), Ch. 2: "The Awakening of Asia" This passage uses phrases from his earlier work The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)
Context: It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from the sense of inadequacy and impotence. We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression. St. Vincent De Paul cautioned his disciples to deport themselves so that the poor "will forgive them the bread you give them."

Eleanor Clift photo

“People want change but not too much change. Finding that balance is tricky for every politician.”

Eleanor Clift (1940) American journalist

"Eleanor Clift Interview", by Katharine Hikel, at Vermont Woman (4 August 2004) http://www.vermontwoman.com/articles/2004/0804/eleanor-clift.html

Stephen Fry photo

Related topics