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Quotation by John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, 1st Baron
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad man.
John Emerich Edward Dalberg, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902), British historian. Letter, April 3, 1887, to Bishop Mandell Creighton. The Life and Letters of Mandell Creighton, vol. 1, ch. 13, ed. Louise Creighton (1904).
William Pitt the Elder had made a similar observation, in a speech to the House of Lords, Jan. 9, 1770: "Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it." In the present century, the economist J.W. Galbraith wrote, "In the United States, though power corrupts, the expectation of power paralyzes." ("The United States," published in New York Nov. 15, 1971, repr. In A View from the Stands, 1986).
William Pitt the Elder had made a similar observation, in a speech to the House of Lords, Jan. 9, 1770: "Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it." In the present century, the economist J.W. Galbraith wrote, "In the United States, though power corrupts, the expectation of power paralyzes." ("The United States," published in New York Nov. 15, 1971, repr. In A View from the Stands, 1986).
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The Columbia World of Quotations © 1996, Columbia University Press.
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Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. Except as otherwise permitted by written agreement, the following are prohibited: copying substantial portions or the entirety of the work in machine readable form, making multiple printouts thereof, and other uses of the work inconsistent with U.S. and applicable foreign copyright and related laws.
