quotations about power
The pursuit of knowledge is, I think, mainly actuated by love of power. And so are all advances in scientific technique.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
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What Desires Are Politically Important?
Power, like the diamond, dazzles the beholder, and also the wearer; it dignifies meanness; it magnifies littleness; to what is contemptible, it gives authority; to what is low, exaltation. To acquire it, appears not more difficult than to be dispossessed of it when acquired, since it enables the holder to shift his own errors on dependents, and to take their merits to himself. But the miracle of losing it vanishes, when we reflect that we are as liable to fall as to rise, by the treachery of others; and that to say "I am" is language that has been appropriated exclusively to God!
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
God made every man to have power to be mightier than the events round about him; to hold by his firm will the reigns by which all things are guided.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it: the pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Power seems to confer on its possessor a mantle of superiority, specialness, and sexual potency, which the envious person desperately wants because he feels himself on some level to be inferior, unimportant, and impotent.
ALEXANDER LOWEN
Narcissism: Denial of the True Self
The worst thing that can be said of the most powerful, is that they can take your life; but the same thing can be said of the most weak.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
The supreme power tends to fall into the hands of men of the keenest intelligence and the most unscrupulous character.
JAMES FRAZER
The Golden Bough
Of the exercise of a right power may deprive me; of the right itself, never.
VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE
"The Economic Tendency of Freethought"
Truly powerful people have great humility. They do not try to impress, they do not try to be influential. They simply are. People are magnetically drawn to them. They are most often very silent and focused, aware of their core selves.... They never persuade, nor do they use manipulation or aggressiveness to get their way. They listen. If there is anything they can offer to assist you, they offer it; if not, they are silent.
SANAYA ROMAN
Living with Joy: Keys to Personal Power and Spiritual Transformation
Power, like vanity, is insatiable. Nothing short of omnipotence could satisfy it completely.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
What Desires Are Politically Important?
If you were handed power on a plate you'd be left fighting over a plate.
TOM STOPPARD
Squaring the Circle
When it comes to controlling human beings there is no better instrument than lies. Because, you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts.
MICHAEL ENDE
The Neverending Story
Nothing is more untrue than the famous saying of an ancient historian, that power is retained by the same arts by which it is acquired; untrue at least for men, though truer in the case of nations.
LORD ACTON
letter to Mary Gladstone, June 1, 1880
All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust and that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to the one great Master, Author, and Founder of society.
EDMUND BURKE
Reflections on the Revolution in France
Power gradually extirpates for the mind every humane and gentle virtue.
EDMUND BURKE
A Vindication of Natural Society
He who has great desire should have great power; if not, woe be to him.
WILLIAM OF POITIERS
attributed, Day's Collacon
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.
JAMES MADISON
attributed, The Great Quotations
He who looks for great power searches for perils.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Words frequently surrender power to the opposer.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Power never takes a back step -- only in the face of more power.
MALCOLM X
Malcolm X Speaks