"Command is a mountain top. The air breathed there is different, and the perspectives seen there are different, from those of the valley of obedience. The passion for order and the genius of construction, which are part of man’s natural endowment, get full play there. The man who has grown great sees from the top of his tower what he can make, if he so wills, of the swarming masses below him."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Philosophers from FranceUniversity of Oxford facultyEconomists from FranceUniversity of Chicago facultyUniversity of California, Berkeley faculty
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
p. 116 — Cf. also Spengler's "Faustian Man"
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bertrand_de_Jouvenel
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Bertrand de Jouvenel
Bertrand de Jouvenel des Ursins (31 October 1903 – 1 March 1987), a late French aristocrat, was a philosopher, political economist, and futurist. Among other places, he taught at Oxford, the Cambridge, Yale
31 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Bertrand de Jouvenel →
Related Quotes
"Power changes its appearance but not its reality. Politics are about power; we cannot evade that truth or its consequ…"
"Barbarian invasions would be superfluous: We are our own Huns."
"In later times, Power's growth has continued at an accelerated pace, and its extension has brought a corresponding ex…"
"Democracy, then, in the centralizing, pattern-making, absolutist shape which we have given to it is, it is clear, the…"
"As we shall see, theories like those of Divine Right and Popular Sovereignty, which pass for opposites, stem in reali…"
"Ransack the history of revolutions, and it will be found that every fall of a regime has been presaged by a defiance …"
"If there is in Power's make-up an egoistical urge combined with the will to serve society, it is a natural suppositio…"
"As every advance of Power is useful for war, so war is useful for the advance of power; war is like a sheep-dog harry…"
"[A]ttempts at the limitation of armaments are, it is clear, a vain thing. Armaments are merely an expression of Power…"
"The Führer will be impressed only if the British and the French nations cure themselves of their present laxity and s…"