quotations about power
Power gradually extirpates for the mind every humane and gentle virtue.
EDMUND BURKE
A Vindication of Natural Society
To claim power over what you do not understand is not wise, nor is the end of it likely to be good.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Farthest Shore
Power deludes the ones who wield it.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Harkonnen
Power, like vanity, is insatiable. Nothing short of omnipotence could satisfy it completely.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
What Desires Are Politically Important?
Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.
CARL SAGAN
The Demon-Haunted World
All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.
FRANK HERBERT
Chapterhouse: Dune
Power dies, power goes under and gutters out, ungraspable. It is momentary, quick of flight and liable to deceive. As soon as you rely on the possession it is gone. Forget that it ever existed, and it returns.
LOUISE ERDRICH
Tracks
The almost insoluble task is to let neither the power of others, nor our own powerlessness, stupefy us.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Minima Moralia
Nothing is more untrue than the famous saying of an ancient historian, that power is retained by the same arts by which it is acquired; untrue at least for men, though truer in the case of nations.
LORD ACTON
letter to Mary Gladstone, June 1, 1880
So long as there is an uneasy class, a class which has not its just power, it will rashly clutch and blindly believe the notion that all men should have the same power.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
attributed, The Dance of Life
Arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken.
ABIGAIL ADAMS
letter to John Adams, May 7, 1776
Power never takes a back step -- only in the face of more power.
MALCOLM X
Malcolm X Speaks
Words frequently surrender power to the opposer.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
What elements of power we wield! Truth unmixed with error, flashing as God's own lightning in its brightness, resistless if properly wielded, as that living flame!
T. M. EDDY
attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers
Power is ever stealing from the many to the few; the manna of popular liberty must be gathered each day, or it is rotten.
WENDELL PHILLIPS
Lectures and Speeches
Power unsubjected to the control of virtue is a poor guardian of civil liberty.
J. P. ZENGER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Power changes everything till it is difficult to say who are the heroes and who the villains.
LIBBA BRAY
The Sweet Far Thing
The steps of power are often steps on sand.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Power always sincerely, conscientiously, de trés bon foi, believes itself right. Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak.
JOHN ADAMS
letter to Thomas Jefferson, February 2, 1816