“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” – Lord Acton
This quote in my opinion is very true but can only be seen in very obvious situations. There has to be one person where no one ever questions him, and it will at first slowly corrupt, getting faster though. Although if you have some power and people still question you then you will be “checked” for say. You going to think “Wow this person sees my power and sees that I could make anything happen, and will try and stop me.” You wont corrupt easily if you can’t do ANYTHING you want, it will be a more slow corruption process.
I have seen this in my life a couple times. One time was with the Enron Corporation, they where supposedly one of the biggest companies for electricity. They had received some gratification for having a revenue that was 111 billion US dollars, this would be there absolute power, and they wanted more, so they cut out some of the liabilities which seemed to be all loans. They were taking out things in their finacial reports and the Government found out and took them down. Corruption occurred and all was lost.
Another time I have seen this corruption was with King George III, he had control over Britain and the colonies (aka America). He had nothing to lose but he decided that he wanted more money and he did some terrible things to the people of his colonies and they fought back, not just for money but for freedom.
One more time of corruption from power would be with Bilbo Baggins in the end of The Hobbit and the beginning of the Lord Of The Rings. He found a very special ring, which is the ring to rule them, all, meaning everyone hence the word all. This ring also would allow you to become invisible which was used for pulling pranks on people. In the end Gandalf helps him let the ring go, and gives it to his Nephew who is to destroy it.