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Quotes about power

213 quotes from 148 people

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Revolutionaries do not make revolutions! The revolutionaries are those who know when power is lying in the street and when they can pick it up. Armed uprising by itself has never yet led to revolution.
Hannah Arendt1906–1975Crises of the Republic (1969)
- Politics
It is true that every increase of knowledge may possibly render depravity more depraved, as well as it may increase the strength of virtue. It is in itself only power; and its value depends on its application.
Sydney Smith1771–1845“Female Education” (review of Thomas Broadhurst, Advice to Young Ladies on the Improvement of Mind, 1808), in The Edinburgh Review, No. 30 (January 1810), p. 314
- Knowledge
Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.
Hannah Arendt1906–1975The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), Part 3, Chapter 10
- Government
By its very nature, non-violence cannot ‘seize’ power, nor can that be its goal. But non-violence can do more; it can effectively control and guide power without capturing the machinery of government. That is its beauty.
Mahatma Gandhi1869–1948Young India (Feb. 7, 1931) p. 162
- War & Peace
A king is sometimes obliged to commit crimes; but they are the crimes of his position.
Napoleon1769–1821Political Aphorisms, Moral and Philosophical Thoughts (1848)
The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.
William Hazlitt1778–1830Political Essays (1819), “The Times Newspaper”
- Liberty
The slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown. He must dominate in his turn.
Albert Camus1913–1960The Rebel (1951)
- Justice
No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784The Rambler (1750–1752), No. 148 (17 August 1751)
- Laws
For, in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery: but in fact, eleven men well armed will certainly subdue one single man in his shirt.
Jonathan Swift1667–1745The Drapier’s Letters, letter iv (13 October, 1724)
- Government
Nor is it any longer possible for you to give up this empire … Your empire is now like a tyranny: it may have been wrong to take it; it is certainly dangerous to let it go.
Pericles494–429 BCHistory of the Peloponnesian War, Book 2, chapter 63: Pericles’ third speech
As the most powerful state, the U.S. makes its own laws, using force and conducting economic warfare at will.
Noam Chomskyborn 1928In Tony Evans (ed.), Human Rights Fifty Years on: A Reappraisal, 1997
- America
A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.
Winston Churchill1874–1965“The Defence of Freedom and Peace (The Lights are Going Out)”, radio broadcast to the United States and to London (16 October 1938).
- Ideas
A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible.
George Orwell1903–1950The Prevention of Literature (1946)
- Government
Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history mankind has been bullied by scum.
POP. J. O'Rourke1947–2022Parliament of Whores (1991)
- Government
If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it?
Edward Bernays1891–1995Propaganda (1928), p. 71