
“The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.”
“The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.”
“Through the machineries of greed, pettiness, and the abuse of power, love occurs.”
Source: Gravity's Rainbow
Report of the Independent Expert on the adverse impact of World Bank policies on human rights and the realisation of a democratic and equitable international order
2017, Report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council
Protectionism: the -ism which teaches that waste makes wealth, 1888, paragraph 155 http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/sumner-protectionism-the-ism-which-teaches-that-waste-makes-wealth.
“Power invariably means both responsibility and danger.”
1900s, Inaugural Address (1905)
Section 13; often the final portion of this is quoted alone as: "Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power."
Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)
Context: The Savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets.
There are similarities between absolute power and absolute faith: a demand for absolute obedience; a readiness to attempt the impossible; a bias for simple solutions — to cut the knot rather than unravel it; the viewing of compromise as surrender; the tendency to manipulate people and "experiment with blood."
Both absolute power and absolute faith are instruments of dehumanization. Hence absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.