| Quote | Author | Date | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
Have you never thought how danger must surround power as shadow does light? |
Ursula K. Le Guin | born 1929 | A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) |
However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion. |
George Washington | 1732 – 1799 | |
The people who cast the votes don’t decide an election, the people who count the votes do. |
Joseph Stalin | 1878 – 1953 | |
Too bad ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation. |
Henry Kissinger | born 1923 | |
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. |
Lord Acton | 1834 – 1902 | Knowles, E. (1999). The Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours its own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor. |
Thomas Jefferson | 1743 – 1826 | Knowles, E. (1999). The Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which. |
George Orwell | 1903 – 1950 | Animal Farm (1945) |
How come there’s only one Monopolies Commission? |
Nigel Rees | born 1944 | |
There’s no way to use power for good. |
Ursula K. Le Guin | born 1929 | Tales from Earthsea (2001) |
Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though for but one year, can never willingly abandon it. |
Edmund Burke | 1729 – 1797 | Knowles, E. (1999). The Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. |