“Some are born to invent, others to embellish; but the gilder attracts more attention than the architect.”

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 190.

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Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues photo
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues 60
French writer, a moralist 1715–1747

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“It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.”

Source: The Postman (1985), Section 3, “Cincinnatus”, Chapter 14 (p. 267)
Variant: It is said that power corrupts, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.
As quoted in Values of the Wise: Humanity's Highest Aspirations (2004) by Jason Merchey, p. 120
This is very similar to the expression by Frank Herbert in Chapterhouse: Dune (1985): "All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."
Context: It’s said that “power corrupts,” but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. When they do act, they think of it as service, which has limits. The tyrant, though, seeks mastery, for which he is insatiable, implacable.

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“I am much more a gardener than an architect.”

George Raymond Richard Martin (1948) American writer, screenwriter and television producer

Audio Interview http://www.geekson.com/archives/archiveepisodes/2006/episode080406.htm with Geekson http://www.geekson.com in Episode 54, (4 August 2006)
Context: There are many different kinds of writers, I like to use the analogy of architects and gardeners. There are some writers who are architects, and they plan everything, they blueprint everything, and they know before the drive the first nail into the first board what the house is going to look like and where all the closets are going to be, where the plumbing is going to run, and everything is figured out on the blueprints before they actually begin any work whatsoever. And then there are gardeners who dig a little hole and drop a seed in and water it with their blood and see what comes up, and sort of shape it. They sort of know what seed they've planted — whether it's an oak or an elm, or a horror story or a science fiction story, but they don't how big it's going to be, or what shape it's going to take. I am much more a gardener than an architect.

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“Absolute discretion is a ruthless master. It is more destructive of freedom than any of man's other inventions.”

William O. Douglas (1898–1980) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Dissenting, United States v. Wunderlich, 342 U.S. 98, 101 (1951)
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“Some women attract desire. Others do not.”

Source: The Other Boleyn Girl

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