quotations about power
Power never takes a back step -- only in the face of more power.
MALCOLM X
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Malcolm X Speaks
Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.
JOHN ADAMS
Novanglus Essays, No. 3
I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to Mr. Leiper, June 12, 1815
He who looks for great power searches for perils.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
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
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
One of the tremendous evils of the world is the monstrous accumulation of power in a few hands. Half a dozen men may, at this moment, light the fires of war through the world, may convulse all civilized nations, sweep earth and sea with armed hosts, spread desolation through the fields and bankruptcy through cities, and make themselves felt by some form of suffering through every household in Christendom.
WILLIAM E. CHANNING
Thoughts
We never get far from wealth and all of its masks when we deal with power.
FRANK HERBERT
Children of Dune
Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.
CARL SAGAN
The Demon-Haunted World
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 unsubjected to the control of virtue is a poor guardian of civil liberty.
J. P. ZENGER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Power deludes the ones who wield it.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Harkonnen
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
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
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 based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment.
MAHATMA GANDHI
The Indian States' Problem
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 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