Power Quotes

"Revolutionaries do not make revolutions. The revolutionaries are those who know when power is lying in the street and then they can pick it up."

"Born in poverty, he will take supreme power. He will bankrupt the country. Raising an army in the Milanese marches, he will drain Faenza and Florence of gold and people."

"The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed."

"Power over others is weakness disguised as strength."

"Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true."

"To live happily is an inward power of the soul."

"Governments are not representative. They have their own power, serving segments of the population that are dominant and rich."

"The spring wakes us, nurtures us and revitalizes us. How often does your spring come? If you are a prisoner of the calendar, it comes once a year. If you are creating authentic power, it comes frequently, or very frequently."

"As a nuclear power - as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon - the United States has a moral responsibility to act."

"Enthusiasm... the sustaining power of all great action."

"Power is poison. Its effect on Presidents had always been tragic."

"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them."

"I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage."

"Vision without power does bring moral elevation but cannot give a lasting culture."

"The power of intuitive understanding will protect you from harm until the end of your days."

"It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self."

"What then do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence within you of anything but a power unknown to you of feeling and thinking."

"The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power."

"We are not animals. We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice."

"The insatiable need for heartless power and ruthless control is the telltale sign of an uninitiated man - the most irresponsible, incompetent and destructive force on earth."

"There's nothing more powerful than a woman who knows how to contain her power and not let it leak, standing firmly within it in mystery and silence. A woman who talks too much sheds her allure."

"In the intellectual order, the virtue of humility is nothing more nor less than the power of attention."

"Wasting brain power ruminating about things you can't control drains mental energy quickly. The more you think about problems you can't solve, the less energy you'll have leftover for more productive endeavors."

"Military dictatorship is born from the power of the gun, and so it undermines the concept of the rule of law and gives birth to a culture of might, a culture of weapons, violence and intolerance."

"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, the power to destroy."

"The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind."

"They who gain applause and power by pandering to the mistakes, the prejudices and passions of the multitude are the enemies of liberty."

"Indeed, the existence of class, of social hierarchy, is as old as man himself. It prevails in the jungle where strength determines hierarchy; among men, it has also been savagely the same, whereby rulers vested with power through personal combat, or through lineal heritage as in the case of royalty, ravage their subjects."

"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."

"In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme."

"Palestinians have no wealth or power."

"The three most powerful and most apparent means used by Rome to retain her power over the minds of her votaries are Ignorance, Superstition, and Persecution."

"True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare."

"It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so."

"You have not fully expressed your power as a voter until you have scientific literacy in topics that matter for future political issues."

"Advertising ministers to the spiritual side of trade. It is great power that has been entrusted to your keeping which charges you with the high responsibility of inspiring and ennobling the commercial world. It is all part of the greater work of the regeneration and redemption of mankind."

"An elusive, enigmatic aura will make people want to know more, drawing them into your circle. Create such a power by hinting at something contradictory within you."

"Our democracy is designed to speak truth to power."

"If you stay true to yourself and true to your vision and your own values, you can power through and make an impact on modern life."

"Once you've built the big machinery of political power, remember you won't always be the one to run it."

"The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure."

"Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but left to its own course it ends in power's disappearance."

"One should never forbid what one lacks the power to prevent."

"The one characteristic of authentic power that most people overlook is humbleness. It is important for many reasons. A humble person walks in a friendly world. He or she sees friends everywhere he or she looks, wherever he or she goes, whomever he or she meets. His or her perception goes beyond the shell of appearance and into essence."

"The almost insoluble task is to let neither the power of others, nor our own powerlessness, stupefy us."

"It is energy - the central element of which is will - that produces the miracle that is enthusiasm in all ages. Everywhere it is what is called force of character and the sustaining power of all great action."

"He who steals a little steals with the same wish as he who steals much, but with less power."

"There is nothing happens to any person but what was in his power to go through with."

"The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason."

"Liberal: a power worshipper without power."