quotations about power
Power never takes a back step -- only in the face of more power.
MALCOLM X
Malcolm X Speaks
The almost insoluble task is to let neither the power of others, nor our own powerlessness, stupefy us.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Minima Moralia
With great power there must also come ... great responsibility!
STAN LEE
Amazing Fantasy #15, August 1962
If any man is rich and powerful, he comes under that law of God by which the higher branches must take the burnings of the sun, and shade those that are lower; by which the tall trees must protect the weak plants beneath them.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
HENRY KISSINGER
And I Quote
Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.
JOHN ADAMS
Novanglus Essays, No. 3
Power broken into a thousand pieces can be hidden and disowned.
LEWIS H. LAPHAM
Waiting for the Barbarians
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
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.
MARTIN BUBER
Between Man and Man
Power tends to isolate those who hold too much of it. Eventually, they lose touch with reality ... and fall.
FRANK HERBERT
Dune Messiah
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
Power changes everything till it is difficult to say who are the heroes and who the villains.
LIBBA BRAY
The Sweet Far Thing
Power doesn't have to show off. Power is confident, self-assuring, self-starting and self-stopping, self-warming and self-justifying. When you have it, you know it.
RALPH ELLISON
Invisible Man
The love of power is the demon of all men.
TONGAYI CHIRISA
"The Sin Eater", Sleepy Hollow
When your power comes from others, on approval, you are their slave.
TOBIAS WOLFF
Old School
The depositary of power is always unpopular.
BENJAMIN DISRAELI
Coningsby
One of the things about powerful people is they have the ability to make it look easy.
ICE-T
Men's Health, December 2005
One uses power by grasping it lightly. To grasp too strongly is to be taken over by power, and thus to become its victim.
FRANK HERBERT
Children of Dune
Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.
PAULO FREIRE
The Politics of Education: Culture, Power, and Liberation
If you are born to power, you must prove you deserve it through good works -- or give it up. To do any less is to act without conscience.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Atreides