The Corrosive Nature of Power

Key points

Power is corrosive when it becomes an obsession.

Unchecked power often leads to grandiosity and reckless decision-making.

Staying grounded in simple pleasures and pursuits is the best way of avoiding power's corrosive influence.

When Lord Acton first uttered his famous words in 1887, “Power tends to corrupt, but absolute power corrupts absolutely,” he was unaware of how prophetic his words were. An English historian, liberal politician, and writer, Lord Acton was a staunch believer in individual rights and personal liberty, which he believed were under attack in his day by excessive institutional and governmental power. While he didn’t own a crystal ball and thus had no way of knowing how valid his words would become decades later, Lord Acton, like Shakespeare, understood hu