People/Percy Bysshe Shelley/Quote

Power, like a desolating pestilence,
Pollutes whate’er it touches; and obedience,
Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,
Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame
A mechanized automaton.

Percy Bysshe Shelley on power

Queen Mab (1813), Canto III

Quote and source from Wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0

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