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Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  Eric Hoffer (1902–83)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 1448
AUTHOR: Eric Hoffer (1902–83)
QUOTATION: There are similarities between absolute power and absolute faith: a demand for absolute obedience, a readiness to attempt the impossible, a bias for simple solutions—to cut the knot rather than unravel it, the viewing of compromise as surrender. Both absolute power and absolute faith are instruments of dehumanization. Hence, absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.
ATTRIBUTION: ERIC HOFFER, “Thoughts of Eric Hoffer, Including: ‘Absolute Faith Corrupts Absolutely,’” The New York Times Magazine, April 25, 1971, p. 24.
SUBJECTS: Power