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 "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. 

Great men are almost always bad men."


The historian and moralist, John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton known simply as Lord Acton, is perhaps best known for the above quotation:

The text is a favorite 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 didn't invent the idea though; quotations very like it had been uttered by several authors well before 1887.

Lord Acton has left too little completed original work to rank among the great historians; his very learning seems to have stood in his way; he knew too much and his literary conscience was too acute for him to write easily, and his copiousness of information overloads his literary style. But he was one of the most deeply learned men of his time, and he will certainly be remembered for his influence on others.

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