The famous line “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” was written by the British historian and politician Lord Acton (John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton) in an 1887 letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton.

In its original form, Acton’s sentence was:

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”

The idea behind the quote—that unchecked or “absolute” power leads to serious moral corruption—had been expressed earlier in similar wording by figures like William Pitt the Elder, but the precise, well‑known phrasing is attributed specifically to Lord Acton.

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