“The power to do good is also the power to do harm; those who control the power today may not tomorrow; and, more important, what one man regards as good, another may regard as harm.”

— Milton Friedman , book Capitalism and Freedom

Introduction, p. 3
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)

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Milton Friedman 158

American economist, statistician, and writer 1912–2006

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“The liberal conceives of men as imperfect beings. He regards the problem of social organization to be as much a negative problem of preventing 'bad' people from doing harm as of enabling 'good' people to do good; and, of course, 'bad' and 'good' people may be the same people, depending on who is judging them.”

Milton Friedman book Capitalism and Freedom

Source: Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, p. 12

“A may exercise power over B by getting him to do what he does not want to do, but he may also exercise power over him by shaping or determining his very wants. Indeed, is it not the supreme exercise of power to get another or others to have the desires you want them to have – that is, to secure their compliance by controlling their thoughts and desires?”

Steven Lukes (1941) British sociologist

Power: A Radical View (1974)

“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.”

Barry Goldwater (1909–1998) American politician

Acceptance Speech http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/may98/goldwaterspeech.htm as the Republican Presidential candidate, San Francisco (July 1964)
Unsourced variant: Now 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 tyranny.
Context: 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. Their mistaken course stems from false notions of equality, ladies and gentlemen. Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.

“Those who stay away from the election think that one vote will do no good. 'Tis but one step more to think one vote will do no harm.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

“Nature has had regard in everything no less to the end than to the beginning and the continuance, just like a man who throws up a ball. What good is it then for the ball to be thrown up, or harm for it to come down… what good is it to the bubble while it holds together, or what harm when it is burst?”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VIII, 20
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VIII

“No people do so much harm as those who go about doing good.”

Mandell Creighton (1843–1901) English historian and ecclesiastic

Quoted by Louise Creighton in Life and Letters of Mandell Creighton, vol. 2 http://books.google.com/books?id=XFrIeWud0_wC&q=%22no+people+do+so+much+harm+as+those+who+go+about+doing+good%22&pg=PA501#v=onepage. (1905)

“At least so far, it’s climate change policy that’s doing harm. Climate change itself is probably doing good; or at least, more good than harm.”

Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician

Quoted in "Tony Abbott says climate change is 'probably doing good'" https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/oct/10/tony-abbott-says-climate-change-is-probably-doing-good, The Guardian, October 10, 2017
2017

“There is nothing less powerful than knowledge unattached, and incapable of application. That is why what little knowledge I have has done myself personally so much harm. I do not know much, but if I knew a good deal less than that little I should be far more powerful.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Knowledge is Power
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VII - On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books

“The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding.”

Albert Camus book The Plague

The Plague (1947)
Context: The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance which fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. There can be no true goodness, nor true love, without the utmost clear-sightedness.

“Those kind friends who suggest to a person suffering from a tedious complaint, that he "Had better try Homoeopathy," are apt to enforce their suggestion by adding, that "at any rate it can do no harm." This may or may not be true as regards the individual. But it always does very great harm to the community to encourage ignorance, error, or deception in a profession which deals with the life and health of our fellow-creatures.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) Poet, essayist, physician

Homeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions (1842)

“The power to do good is also the power to do harm; those who control the power today may not tomorrow; and, more important, what one man regards as good, another may regard as harm.”

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Milton Friedman 158

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