Search results
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” The saying “Absolute power corrupts absolutely” was coined by the English historian Lord Acton in 1887. The text is a favourite of collectors of quotations and is always included in anthologies.
Literary analysis for the phrase 'Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely', with meaning, origin, and examples in literature and sentences.
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.
The quote Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely comes from the nineteenth-century English historian Lord Acton (1834–1902) in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton about how historians should judge the abuse of power by past rulers, especially popes.
Illustration by Chris Rubino. “Power tends to corrupt,” said Lord Acton, the 19th-century British historian. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”. His maxim has been vividly illustrated ...
