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Quotes about power

213 quotes from 148 people

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Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party.
Mao Zedong1893–1976Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong (The Little Red Book), Chapter 9, originally published in the Problems of War and Strategy (November 6, 1938), Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 224.
- Politics
Power dements even more than it corrupts, lowering the guard of foresight and raising the haste of action.
Will Durant1885–1981The Story of Civilization XI: The Age of Napoleon (1975), Ch. IV, Part V, § 4
The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn’t betray it I’d be ashamed of myself.
Noam Chomskyborn 1928Interview on The Late Show, BBC Television (25 November 1992)
There is nothing to life that has value, except the degree of power⁠—assuming that life itself is the will to power.
Friedrich Nietzsche1844–1900The Will to Power (1888), Book 1, sec. 55 (10 June 1887)
- Life & Death
Power consists in one’s capacity to link his will with the purpose of others, to lead by reason and a gift of cooperation.
Woodrow Wilson1856–1924From a letter to Mary A. Hulbert (21 September 1913)
- Leadership
The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics.
Bertrand Russell1872–1970Power: A New Social Analysis (1938), Ch. 1: The Impulse to Power
Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.
Paulo Freire1921–1997The Politics of Education (1985), Chapter 10, page 122
The class which has the power to rob upon a large scale has also the power to control the government and legalize their robbery.
Eugene V. Debs1855–1926in Debs (1971), p. 75
- Government
Power can be very addictive. And it can be corrosive. And it’s important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power.
George W. Bushborn 1946Interview with Matt Lauer (2017)
- Journalism
The Value or WORTH of a man, is as of all other things, his Price; that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his Power…
Thomas Hobbes1588–1679Leviathan (1651), The First Part, Chapter 10, p. 42In context
- Money
I did not usurp the crown. I picked it up from the gutter; the people placed it on my head. I was king of the people as the Bourbons are kings of the nobles.
Napoleon1769–18213 September 1816. Quoted in Napoleon at St Helena, John Stevens Cabot Abbott, pg 375.
The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.
Philip K. Dick1928–1982“How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later” (1978)
People seem good while they are oppressed, but they only wish to become oppressors in their turn: life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.
Bertrand Russell1872–1970Letter to Ottoline Morrell, 17 December, 1920
- Good & Evil
The State is not force alone. It depends upon the credulity of man quite as much as upon his docility. Its aim is not merely to make him obey, but also to make him want to obey.
H. L. Mencken1880–1956Minority Report: H.L. Mencken’s Notebooks (1956), p. 217-218
- Government
The rights of neutrality will only be respected, when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral.
Alexander Hamilton1757–1804The Federalist Papers (1787–1788), No. 11
- War & Peace