26/05/2026
Quotes that teaches you 2 core lessons about power and politics:
1. Power distorts behavior when it’s not checked
Lord Acton:“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Cicero: “Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.”
Orwell: Power becomes the end itself, not a tool for service.
Lesson: When leaders can exclude rivals without consequence, they stop governing for the public and start governing to stay in office. The closer you get to an election, the stronger that temptation gets. It’s why systems need checks, transparency, and opposition.
2. Exclusion is usually about fear, not principle
Aung San Suu Kyi: “It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it.”
Machiavelli: People are split between holding onto what they have and grabbing what they don’t.
Weber: Politics is a struggle for domination.
Lesson: Sidelining others near elections isn’t random pettiness. It’s a defensive move. Leaders fear losing control, losing influence, or being exposed. So they shrink the circle to people they trust, even if that weakens the party/country long-term.
3. The cost is legitimacy
Madison: Factions acting against the rights of others undermine the whole system.
Aristotle: When a few rule for themselves, it stops being good governance and becomes oligarchy.
Locke: Power is a trust held for the people. Treating it as personal property breaks that trust.
Lesson: You might win the next election by excluding people, but you lose trust. Once people see politics as a closed club, they disengage or turn cynical. That’s how you get “stasis, faction, and eventual decay” that Plato and Aristotle warned about.
Bottom line:
These quotes teach that political exclusion near elections is old, predictable, and driven by fear of losing power. It works short-term, but it corrodes the system long-term. The fix isn’t just better leaders —
