"It has been often said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the fruits of weakness.
The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them, but from the sense of their inadequacy and impotence. They hate not wickedness but weakness. When it is in their power to do so, the weak destroy weakness wherever they see it.
Woe to the weak when they are preyed upon by the weak. The self-hatred of the weak is likewise an instance of their hatred of weakness.
The mere possession of power does not inevitably lead to aggression. It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable. Some inner unbalance is apparently needed to keep people on the go, and it needs the unbalancing of fear to activate power.
Only when power utilizes the propensities and talents of the weak does it become ruthless and vicious.
It is a talent of the weak to persuade themselves that…they are showing the way when they are running away; that they see the light when they feel the heat.
Great evils befall the world when the powerful begin to copy the weak. The desperate devices which enable the weak to survive are unequaled instruments of oppression and extermination in the hands of the strong."
-Eric Hoffer