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Quotes about power

213 quotes from 148 people

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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
The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all. He is not seeking power.
Václav Havel1936–2011Living in Truth (1986), “An Anatomy of Reticence”
I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.
Václav Havel1936–2011“A Word About Words”, speech accepting the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (15 October 1989)
- Government
The real difficulty is with the vast wealth and power in the hands of the few and the unscrupulous who represent or control capital.
Rutherford B. Hayes1822–1893Diary (11 March 1888)
- Money
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
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)
It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.
Frank Herbert1920–1986Chapterhouse Dune (1985)
Don’t give over all of your critical faculties to people in power, no matter how admirable those people may appear to be.
Frank Herbert1920–1986Dune Genesis (1980)
- Leadership
An incumbent in Washington knows he is in trouble on the day that cartoonists begin to represent him as a king.
Christopher Hitchens1949–2011The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain’s Favourite Fetish (1990)
- Presidency
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
So that in the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of Power after power, that ceaseth only in Death.
Thomas Hobbes1588–1679Leviathan (1651), Pt. I, Ch. 11, p. 47In context
Nobody in this country respects what’s weak. You believe me!
Jimmy Hoffa1913–1975CBC Television interview, Washington (1960)
- America
Never have so many been manipulated so much by so few.
Aldous Huxley1894–1963Brave New World Revisited (1958), Chapter 3 (pp. 19-20)
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
The mechanical mind has a passion for control — of everything except itself.
L. P. Jacks1860–1955Revolt Against Mechanism (1933).