Quotes about power
213 quotes from 148 people
Stokely Carmichael1941–1998Chapter Four, p. 101
Edmund Burke1729–1797Second Speech on Conciliation with America (1775)
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882Society and Solitude (1870), Old Age- Edmund Burke1729–1797Letter to Thomas Mercer
Francis Bacon1561–1626Essex’s Device (1595)
Aldous Huxley1894–1963Brave New World Revisited (1958), Chapter 3 (pp. 19-20)Power never takes a back step — only in the face of more power.
Malcolm X1925–1965Malcolm X Speaks (1965)Every addition to true knowledge is an addition to human power.
Horace Mann1796–1859Lectures on Education (1855), Lecture 1Every noble crown is, and on earth will forever be, a crown of thorns.
Thomas Carlyle1795–1881Past and Present (1843), Bk. III, ch. 7.A monarch’s neck should always have a noose around it—it keeps him upright.
Robert A. Heinlein1907–1988The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985), Chapter 9 (p. 99)I assure you I had rather be the first man here than the second man in Rome.
Julius Caesar100–44 BCOn passing through a village in the Alps, as attributed in Parallel Lives , by Plutarch, as translated by John Langhorne and William Langhorne (1836), p. 499Real power means you can get what you want without having to exert violence.
Barack Obamaborn 1961In late January 2016, as quoted in “The Obama Doctrine” by Jeffrey Goldberg, in The Atlantic (April 2016)Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression.
Malcolm X1925–1965Malcolm X Speaks (1965), p. 158Knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanicks laughs at strength.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Ch. XIIIIf you attack the establishment long enough and hard enough, they will make you a member of it.
Art Buchwald1925–2007International Herald Tribune (24 May 1989).