On the recordJanuary 1, 1791
When extraordinary power and extraordinary pay are allotted to any individual in a government, he becomes the center, round which every kind of corruption generates and forms.
Said by
Thomas Paine
Source
gutenberg.orgThomas Paine: “When extraordinary power and extraordinary pay are allotted to any individual in a government, he becomes the center…”
Editor's note · Context
Paine warns that granting excessive power and remuneration to individuals in government inevitably leads to widespread corruption.
Share
More from Thomas Paine
Jan 1, 1791
The oppressed soldier will become a freeman; and the tortured sailor, no longer dragged through the streets like a felon, will pursue his mercantile voyage in safety.
Jan 1, 1791
By the former, freedom has a national champion in the western world; and by the latter, in Europe.
Jan 1, 1791
The horrid scene that is now acting by the English government in the East-Indies, is fit only to be told of Goths and Vandals, who, destitute of principle, robbed and tortured the world they were incapable of enjoying.
Jan 1, 1791
The object, in all such preliminary proceedings, is to find out what the general sense of a nation is, and to be governed by it.