Eric Hoffer: "Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many"

It has often been 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 faults of weakness.  The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from their sense of inadequacy and impotence.  We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them.  They feel our generosity as oppression. 

~ Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms, Section 42, 1955