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Quotes about power

213 quotes from 148 people

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Crave not mastery in all,
For the mastery that raised thee was thy bane and wrought thy fall.
Sophocles496–406 BCOedipus the King (c. 429 BC), spoken by CreonIn context
- Pride
Of insolence is bred
The tyrant; insolence full blown,
With empty riches surfeited,
Scales the precipitous height and grasps the throne.
Then topples o’er and lies in ruin prone;
No foothold on that dizzy steep.
Sophocles496–406 BCOedipus the King (c. 429 BC), spoken by ChorusIn context
- Pride
The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.
Karl Marx1818–1883The Communist Manifesto (1848)In context
- Ideas
You may my glories and my state depose,
But not my griefs; still am I king of those.
William Shakespeare1564–1616Richard II (c. 1595), Act IV, Scene I, spoken by King RichardIn context
- Emotion
No ceremony that to great ones longs,
Not the king’s crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe,
Become them with one half so good a grace
As mercy does.
William Shakespeare1564–1616Measure for Measure (c. 1604), Act II, Scene II, spoken by IsabellaIn context
- Forgiveness
O, it is excellent
To have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
William Shakespeare1564–1616Measure for Measure (c. 1604), Act II, Scene II, spoken by IsabellaIn context
But man, proud man,
Dressed in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he’s most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As makes the angels weep
William Shakespeare1564–1616Measure for Measure (c. 1604), Act II, Scene II, spoken by IsabellaIn context
- Pride
I want for once in my life to have power to mould a human destiny.
Henrik Ibsen1828–1906Hedda Gabler (1890), Act Second, spoken by HeddaIn context
For he that does good, having the unlimited power to do evil, deserves praise not only for the good which he performs, but for the evil which he forbears.
Walter Scott1771–1832Ivanhoe (1819), Chapter XXXIIIIn context
- Good & Evil
An invisible man is a man of power.
H. G. Wells1866–1946The Invisible Man (1897), Chapter IXIn context
The right of conquest has no foundation other than the right of the strongest.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau1712–1778The Social Contract (1762), Book I, Chapter IVIn context
- War & Peace
He must master or be mastered; while to show mercy was a weakness. Mercy did not exist in the primordial life. It was misunderstood for fear, and such misunderstandings made for death. Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, was the law; and this mandate, down out of the depths of Time, he obeyed.
Jack London1876–1916The Call of the Wild (1903), Chapter VIIn context
- Nature
’Tis written, gifts persuade
The gods in heaven; and gold is stronger made
Than words innumerable to bend men’s ways.
Euripides481–407 BCMedea (431 BC), Part 2, spoken by MedeaIn context
- Money
Persuasion is better than Force.
Aesop620–564 BCAesop’s Fables (6th century BC), The Gamecocks and the Partridge – The Dove and the CrowIn context
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny.
Aesop620–564 BCAesop’s Fables (6th century BC), The Lion and the Mouse – The Fawn and His MotherIn context
- Justice