Power

"Every institution which grapples with the problem of molding recalcitrant material into a fairer shape—and nothing is more recalcitrant than the passions and interests of men—runs the risk of being defeated by its material. And since the institution which proposes the ideal is itself served by fallible human beings, the danger is not only that the experiment may fail but that the artists themselves, wrestling with such insidious substances as power, responsibility, and material goods, may themselves be caught by these powerful instincts, may appropriate to themselves the power they sought to tame or the riches they had hoped to divert to a nobler cause."

"Man is constantly being assured that he has more power than ever before in history, but his daily experience is one of powerlessness. … If he is with a business organization, the odds are great that he has sacrificed every other kind of independence in return for that dubious one known as financial."

"An untoward event. (Threatening to disturb the balance of power.)"

"My cool judgement is, that if all the other doctrines of devils which have been committed to writing since letters were in the world were collected together in one volume, it would fall short of this; and that, should a Prince form himself by this book, so calmly recommending hypocrisy, treachery, lying, robbery, oppression, adultery, whoredom, and murder of all kinds, Domitian or Nero would be an angel of light compared to that man."

"People with real power never fear of losing it. People with control think of little else."

"Power is habit-forming. We grew addicted to it. Few things survive the centuries’ slow decay: senses grow dull; passions grow weak; and ideals die. Only the taste for power lives on as an excuse for survival."

"Power consists in one's capacity to link his will with the purpose of others, to lead by reason and a gift of cooperation."

"Better were the prospects of a people under the influence of the worst government who should hold the power of changing it, than those of a people under the best who should hold no such power."

"Power never takes a back step — only in the face of more power."

"Every Communist must grasp the truth: "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.""

"Michael Corleone: My father's no different than any other powerful man – any man who's responsible for other people, like a senator or a president."

"Give me a lever long enough And a prop strong enough, I can single handed move the world."

"Odin, thou whirlwind, what a threat is this Thou threatenest what transcends thy might, even thine, For of all powers the mightiest far art thou, Lord over men on earth, and Gods in Heaven; Yet even from thee thyself hath been withheld One thing — to undo what thou thyself hast ruled."

"Iron hand in a velvet glove."

"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."

"Qui peut ce qui lui plaît, commande alors qu'il prie."

"So mightiest powers by deepest calms are fed, And sleep, how oft, in things that gentlest be!"

"For what can power give more than food and drink, To live at ease, and not be bound to think?"

"Du bist noch nicht der Mann den Teufel festzuhalten."

"Patience and Gentleness is Power."

"O what is it proud slime will not believe Of his own worth, to hear it equal praised Thus with the gods?"

"Nihil est quod credere de se Non possit, quum laudatur dis æqua potestas."

"Et qui nolunt occidere quemquam Posse volunt."

"The function of the law is not to provide justice or to preserve freedom. The function of the law is to keep those who hold power, in power."

"Politics is the art of making the people believe that they are in power, when in fact, they have none."

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it."

"Power always sincerely, conscientiously, de très bon foi, believes itself right. Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak."

"Do you think maybe I want power for myself? That’s for fools who want to command other fools."

"Power wears out those who don't have it."

"The crucial question is whether one is safe in assuming that the immense machinery of power that has resulted from activity of the utilitarian type can be made, on anything like present lines, to serve disinterested ends; whether it will not rather minister to the egoistic aims either of national groups or of individuals."

"Knowledge is power."

"He hath no power that hath not power to use."

"Sure, it’s abuse of power. What’s the point in power if you can’t abuse it?"

"Contesting power [...] is inevitable in the pursuit of justice and dignity for the marginalised and excluded."

"There are clear and predictable consequences for the world if human beings continue to rape the earth and plunder its resources; to exploit, oppress, and dominate the weak and the poor for the sake of greed and the hunger for power; to depend on ever-rising levels of violence and ever more lethal instruments of death and destruction in order to secure positions of power and privilege."

"I sell here, Sir, what all the world desires to have—POWER."

"Colin felt a shiver pass down his spine. What man, granted total power, could refrain from using it? And would not his first target inevitably be his fellow men?"

"Every morning I shall concern myself anew about the boundary Between the love-deed-Yes and the power-deed-No And pressing forward honor reality.We cannot avoid Using power, Cannot escape the compulsion To afflict the world, So let us, cautious in diction And mighty in contradiction, Love powerfully."

"Greatness by nature includes a power, but not a will to power. … The great man, whether we comprehend him in the most intense activity of his work or in the restful equipoise of his forces, is powerful, involuntarily and composedly powerful, but he is not avid for power. What he is avid for is the realization of what he has in mind, the incarnation of the spirit."

"When we see a great man desiring power instead of his real goal we soon recognize that he is sick, or more precisely that his attitude to his work is sick. He overreaches himself, the work denies itself to him, the incarnation of the spirit no longer takes place, and to avoid the threat of senselessness he snatches after empty power. This sickness casts the genius on to the same level as those hysterical figures who, being by nature without power, slave for power, in order that they may enjoy the illusion that they are inwardly powerful, and who in this striving for power cannot let a pause intervene, since a pause would bring with it the possibility of self-reflection and self-reflection would bring collapse."

"So long as a man’s power, that is, his capacity to realize what he has in mind, is bound to the goal, to the work, to the calling, it is, considered in itself, neither good nor evil, it is only a suitable or unsuitable instrument. But as soon as this bond with the goal is broken off or loosened, and the man ceases to think of power as the capacity to do something, but thinks of it as a possession, that is, thinks of power in itself, then his power, being cut off and self-satisfied, is evil; it is power withdrawn from responsibility, power which betrays the spirit, power in itself."

"Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power."

"That was the real price, I thought. Once you had power, you ended up having to depend on it. Eventually, like anything else, it owned you. Eventually? No, from the beginning; we just don’t bother admitting it at first."

"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't."

"Men are never very wise and select in the exercise of a new power."

"At a certain point power becomes very frightening, and to really begin to reconstruct civilization means to really act in a powerful way. And power is the thing that women have been taught is a real taboo."

"It is only in folk tales, children's stories, and the journals of intellectual opinion that power is used wisely and well to destroy evil. The real world teaches very different lessons, and it takes willful and dedicated ignorance to fail to perceive them."

"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist."

"A right, in the abstract, is a fact; it is not a thing to be given, established, or conferred; it is. Of the exercise of a right power may deprive me; of the right itself, never."

"Who is all-powerful should fear everything."