Make use of power? What a pernicious illusion. It’s power that makes use of us. Power is a difficult horse to lead: it goes where it must go, or rather, it goes where it can go or where it’s natural for it to go….The ambition to command, the obsession with power is, on all levels, a form of madness. It devours the soul, overwhelms it, makes it false. Even if you aspire power “to good ends”–especially if you aspire to power “to good ends”. The temptation of power must be the most diabolical that can be held out to man, if Satan dared propose it even to Christ. With Christ he didn’t succeed, but he succeeds with Christ’s vicars. It’s a more treacherous temptation than the weakness of the senses. In fact, many chaste men succumb to it.
Ignazio Silone, The Story of a Humble Christian, 149-150.