A quotation from Frank Herbert
All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted.
Frank Herbert (1920–1986) American writer
Chapterhouse: Dune (1985)
More about this quote: wist.info/herbert-frank/86895/
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in reply to WIST Quotations • •David Brin wrote something very similar, also in 1985 (wist.info/brin-david/35460/).
Most quotes around this are how "power corrupts" -- a cautionary tale. It sounds like the idea that "the corrupt take power" was more a cautionary tale for the 70s-80s ... maybe a bit of post-Watergate zeitgeist. The sentiment shifted from "beware power" (as a personal moral risk) to "beware the powerful" (as a societal risk).
In earlier quotes, some of this same sentiment does comes up around ambition (e.g., wist.info/lincoln-abraham/7732… wist.info/adams-john/77256/, wist.info/bourdaloue-louis/574… wist.info/sallust/43899/, wist.info/spenser-edmund/42758… wist.info/otway-thomas/38107/ ). A difference there is that ambition is sometimes seen as a virtue, sometimes as a vice, sometimes as a cautionary both.
You've given me something to keep an eye open for -- whether that early-mid-80s vibe was something new and/or significant.
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