quotations about power
Power, like a desolating pestilence,
Pollutes whate'er it touches.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Queen Mab
Power? It's like a Dead Sea fruit. When you achieve it, there is nothing there.
HAROLD MACMILLAN
attributed, The New Anatomy of Britain
The worst thing that can be said of the most powerful, is that they can take your life; but the same thing can be said of the most weak.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
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
The supreme power tends to fall into the hands of men of the keenest intelligence and the most unscrupulous character.
JAMES FRAZER
The Golden Bough
Power, like vanity, is insatiable. Nothing short of omnipotence could satisfy it completely.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
What Desires Are Politically Important?
He who has great desire should have great power; if not, woe be to him.
WILLIAM OF POITIERS
attributed, Day's Collacon
The quality of the will to power is, precisely, growth. Achievement is its cancellation. To be, the will to power must increase with each fulfillment, making the fulfillment only a step to a further one. The vaster the power gained, the vaster the appetite for more.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Lathe of Heaven
Beware of the man who rises to power
From one suspender.
EDGAR LEE MASTERS
"John Hancock Otis", Spoon River Anthology
Of the exercise of a right power may deprive me; of the right itself, never.
VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE
"The Economic Tendency of Freethought"
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
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
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.
JAMES MADISON
attributed, The Great Quotations
Truly powerful people have great humility. They do not try to impress, they do not try to be influential. They simply are. People are magnetically drawn to them. They are most often very silent and focused, aware of their core selves.... They never persuade, nor do they use manipulation or aggressiveness to get their way. They listen. If there is anything they can offer to assist you, they offer it; if not, they are silent.
SANAYA ROMAN
Living with Joy: Keys to Personal Power and Spiritual Transformation
If you were handed power on a plate you'd be left fighting over a plate.
TOM STOPPARD
Squaring the Circle
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 seems to confer on its possessor a mantle of superiority, specialness, and sexual potency, which the envious person desperately wants because he feels himself on some level to be inferior, unimportant, and impotent.
ALEXANDER LOWEN
Narcissism: Denial of the True Self
God made every man to have power to be mightier than the events round about him; to hold by his firm will the reigns by which all things are guided.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Power deludes the ones who wield it.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Harkonnen
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