Quotes About Power

These types, for example, will often display their weakness and lack of power as a kind of moral virtue. But true powerlessness, without any motive of self-interest, would not publicize its weakness to gain sympathy or respect. Making a show of one's weakness is actually a very effective strategy, subtle and deceptive, in the game of power

Image: The Thumbscrew. Your enemy has secrets that he guards, thinks thoughts he will not reveal. But they come out in ways he cannot help. It is there some where, a groove of weakness on his head, at his heart, over his belly. Once you find the groove, put your thumb in it and turn him at will.

The formation of proper alliances was in some ways a more important art than that of warfare itself, and the statesmen adept at this art were more powerful than military leaders.

But if, to avoid the taint of power, you attempt to treat everyone equally and fairly, you will confront the problem that some people do certain things better than others. Treating everyone equally means ignoring their differences, elevating the less skillful and suppressing those who excel. Again, many of those who behave this way are actually deploying another power strategy, redistributing people's rewards in a way that they determine.

People are enthralled by mystery; because it invites constant interpretation, they never tire of it. The mysterious cannot be grasped. And what cannot be seized and consumed creates power.

For each weakness there is a corresponding strength.

And at the root of this mental transformation are two simple biological traits—the visual and the social—that primitive humans leveraged into power.

For Chinese courtiers, the problem of how to give the emperor advice was an important issue. Over the years, thousands of them had died trying to warn or counsel their master. To be made safely, their criticisms had to be indirect—yet if they were too indirect they would not be heeded. The chronicles were their solution: Identify no one person as the source of criticism, make the advice as impersonal as possible, but let the emperor know the gravity of the situation.

analyze them in terms of the 48 laws of power, and you extract from them a lesson and an oath: "I shall never repeat such a mistake; I shall

If we limit our circle of action, we can give ourselves the illusion of control. The less we attempt, the less chances of failure.

Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good. Hence a prince who wants to keep his authority must learn how not to be good, and use that knowledge, or refrain from using it, as necessity requires. THE PRINCE, Niccolò Machiavelli, 1469-1527 LAW 1 NEVER OUTSHINE THE MASTER JUDGMENT Always make those above you feel comfortably superior.

In truth, the use of honesty is indeed a power strategy, intended to convince people of one's noble, good-hearted, selfless character. It is a form of persuasion, even a subtle form of coercion.

Genuinely innocent people may still be playing for power, and are often horribly effective at the game, since they are not hindered by reflection. Once again, those who make a show or display of innocence are the least innocent of all.

Civil government cannot let any group ride roughshod over others simply because their consciences tell them to do so.

It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error.

That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason.

But none of these men before you acted in minor parts. Each of them was entrusted with broad discretion and exercised great power. Their responsibility is correspondingly great and may not be shifted to that fictional being, "the State", which cannot be produced for trial, cannot testify, and cannot be sentenced.

Power depended on being in the room when the decisions were taken.

Truth was like any other material necessary for the making of war: it had to be beaten and bent and cut into the required shape.

In fact fear is probably the strongest human emotion, period. Whoever woke at four in the morning because they were feeling happy?

I am not a pacifist. The main lesson I have learned in my dealings with Hitler is that one simply can't play poker with a gangster if one has no cards in one's hand.

All civilisations consider themselves invulnerable; history warns us that none is.

Sometimes, he said, summing up the discussion with an aphorism I have never forgotten, if you find yourself stuck in politics, the thing to do is start a fight--start a fight, even if you do not know how you are going to win it, because it is only when a fight is on, and everything is in motion, that you can hope to see your way through.

What a heap of ash most political careers amount to, when one really stops to consider them!