Thomas Jefferson Quotes

Resist the temptation to exploit power for personal or group interests.

But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

Occupants of public offices love power and are prone to abuse it.

Power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will be ever liable to abuse.

Politicians as a class are dangerous, that people who are seeking power over us are not, by definition, our friends.

Men of authority have employed all the destructive agents around them to promote their own personal interests at the sacrifice of every just, honorable, and lawful consideration.

Unlimited power corrupts the possessor.

Power is always a corrupting influence.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.

What I fear most is power with impunity. I fear abuse of power, and the power to abuse.

Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best.

Moral crusade: Public activity undertaken by middle-aged men who are cheating on their wives or diddling little boys. Moral crusades are particularly popular among those seeking power for their own personal pleasure, politicians who can't think of anything useful to do with their mandates, and religious professionals suffering from a personal inability to communicate with their god.

I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature, and that power whether vested in many or few is ever grasping, and like the grave, cries, 'Give, give.'

A political organization is a transferable commodity. You could not find a better way of killing virtue than by packing it into one of these contraptions which some gang of thieves is sure to find useful.

Suspect power more than vice.

Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes.

Experience constantly proves that every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.

Power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.

There were also very great robberies and murder of our principal men. This was done in pretense indeed for the public welfare, but in reality for the hopes of gain to themselves

Those who exercise power always arrange matters so as to give their tyranny the appearance of justice.

Beware of all men who would turn the tasks and the necessities of the nation to their own private profit or use them for the building up of private power.

For his own sordid ends The pulpit he ascends