Great men are almost always bad men. The text is a favourite of collectors of quotations and is always included in anthologies. If you are looking for the exact "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" wording, then Acton is your man. He coined the phrase but he didn't invent the idea; quotations very like it had been uttered by several authors well before Harvard is the storehouse of knowledge because the freshmen bring so much in and the graduates take so little out.
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Why do we say "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely"? Well-Known Expressions. Meaning: People in power are often corrupt, and the more power they have the more corrupt they are.
Background: Given that both ancient and modern history is replete with examples of absolute power, it is surprising that the earliest known reference to this sentiment is in a speech by British Prime Minister William Pitt who, in , noted that "unlimited power is apt to corrupt the mind of those who possess it. In April , he summarized his thoughts in a letter to fellow scholar Mandell Creighton: But if we might discuss this point until we found that we nearly agreed, and if we do agree thoroughly about the impropriety of Carlylese denunciations and Pharisaism in history, I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong.
You do not say, these misbelievers deserved to fall into the hands of these torturers and Fire-the-faggots; but you ignore, you even deny, at least implicitly, the existence of the torture-chamber and the stake. I really don't know whether you exempt them because of their rank, or of their success and power, or of their date. The chronological plea [that they lived a long time ago] may have some little value in a limited sphere of instances.
It does not allow of our saying that such a man did not know right from wrong, unless we are able to say that he lived before Columbus, before Copernicus, and could not know right from wrong. It can scarcely apply to the centre of Christendom, after the birth of our Lord.
If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility [that is, the later judgment of historians] has to make up for the want of legal responsibility [that is, legal consequences during the rulers' lifetimes]. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.
There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which. You would hang a man of no position, like Ravaillac; but if what one hears is true, then Elizabeth asked the gaoler to murder Mary, and William III ordered his Scots minister to extirpate a clan. Here are the greater names coupled with the greater crimes. You would spare these criminals, for some mysterious reason.
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