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Quotes about power

213 quotes from 148 people

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As individuals, men believe they ought to love and serve each other and establish justice between each other. As racial, economic and national groups they take for themselves, whatever their power can command.
Reinhold Niebuhr1892–1971Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932), pp. 8-9
- Morality
For knowledge itself is power.
Francis Bacon1561–1626Meditationes Sacræ [Sacred Meditations] (1597), “De Hæresibus” [Of Heresies]
- Knowledge
Intolerance is evidence of impotence.
Aleister Crowley1875–1947The Confessions of Aleister Crowley (1929), Ch. 69
- Character
All human power is a compound of time and patience.
Honoré de Balzac1799–1850Eugénie Grandet (1833), translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley, ch. VI
- Time
I never was truly my own master but was always ruled by circumstances.
Napoleon1769–1821Conversation with Emmanuel, comte de Las Cases (11 November 1816), Mémorial de Sainte Hélène, v. 4, p. 133.
It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.
Frank Herbert1920–1986Chapterhouse Dune (1985)
Little men in lofty places, who throw long shadows, because our sun is setting.
Walter Savage Landor1775–1864Imaginary Conversations (1824-1829), “Andrew Marvel and Bishop Parker”
- Clever Jabs
When they’re standing right in front of you, kings are a kind of speech impediment.
Terry Pratchett1948–2015The Carpet People (1971; 1992)
- Comedy
To be frank, politics is about wanting power, getting it, exercising it, and keeping it.
Jean Chrétienborn 1934My Years as Prime Minister (2007), “Entre Nous”, p. 2
- Politics
We like to think that tyrants are different from the rest of us. That they are somehow inhuman. They are not.
DGDavid Gemmell1948–2006The Swords of Night and Day, Ch. 10
A nation’s strength ultimately consists in what it can do on its own, and not in what it can borrow from others.
Indira Gandhi1917–1984“Preface, 4th Five Year Plan”, Government of India Planning Commission (July 18, 1970).
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
If things do not change, there will be nothing left to change. Either power must pass to the people or everything will perish.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto1928–1979Letter to his daughter (1978), p. 14.
- Change
Knowing others is intelligence;
knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.
LLaozi580–501 BCTao Te Ching, Ch. 33, tr. Stephen Mitchell (1988)
- Intelligence
- Wisdom
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