"One should see the dominant role of the weak in shaping man's fate not as a perversion of natural instincts and vital impulses, but as the starting point of the deviation which led man to break away from, and rise above, nature — not as degeneration but as the generation of a new order of creation. The corruption inherent in absolute power derives from the fact that such power is never free from the tendency to turn man into a thing, and press him back into the matrix of nature from which he has risen. For the impulse of power is to turn every variable into a constant, and give to commands the inexorableness and relentlessness of laws of nature. Hence absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity."
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Atheists from the United StatesPhilosophers from the United StatesNon-fiction authors from the United StatesPsychologists from the United StatesHumanists
Original Language: English
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Ch. 15: "The Unnaturalness Of Human Nature"
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eric_Hoffer
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Eric Hoffer
1902 – 1983
US-amerikanischer Schriftsteller
179 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Eric Hoffer →
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