Quotes About Power

The deterioration of a government begins almost always by the decay of its principles.

The ruler who possesses methods of government does not follow the good that happens by chance but practices according to necessary principles. Law, methods, and power must be employed for government: these constitute its 'necessary principles.'

Principles are a dangerous form of social dynamite.

In order to restore our country to the principles on which it was founded, we need to elect leaders that believe in the principles of the party, not just the power of the party.

To call the American role in the world imperial was, for many who did so, a way of asserting that the United States was misusing its power beyond its borders and, in so doing, subverting its founding political principles within them.

If principles don't determine what you are going to pass or do, then power will.

There are people in positions of power that are righteous about what they believe: they're enacting out evil principles, but they don't believe that that's what they're doing.

A lot of the questions raised about television's power and influence on events have applied throughout history to every mass-communications medium - most particularly print, because that's the medium we've had the longest.

It's interesting how powerful, in fact, the printed page still is.

As a senator, I will prioritize overturning the current system and restoring openness and integrity to our government to return power to the people.

My priority is to give the United States the kind of influence it should have.

I have always looked at the world through the prism of money to some degree. If you could follow the money, it explains a lot of things, in all sorts of aspects of the world. You can look at politics through the prism of money. You can look at art through the prism of money. You can look at sports through the prism of money.

You look around the world in 2013, and you say, 'How many prime ministers or presidents are in prison?' One or two. 'How many generals or bankers?' Two or three. 'But how many writers?' 850 or so.

There's a hierarchy in prison, and I was right at the top.

To put it in plain language, Russia is that country where the name of a writer appears not on the cover of his book, but on the door of his prison cell.

Your secret is your prisoner; once you reveal it, you become its slave.

The prisoner never loves his warden, even if he obeys the rules from time to time.

The thing I realized about final cut is it's the power of the best cut. I didn't have final cut on 'Prisoners,' but what you saw is the best cut. 'Sicario' is a directors' cut. 'Arrival' is a directors' cut.

Civilization is maintained by a very few people in a small number of places and we need only some bombs and a few prisons to blot it out altogether.

When the power of private prisons is diminished, so, too, is their ability to engage in back-door political lobbying that has an impact on public and private prisons alike.

There's this idea of America that some people have to win and some have to lose, so certain things are in place to make this happen. Some people have to be the next legislators and political elites, and some have to fill the prisons and work in McDonald's. That's how America works. It's a machine which needs people up top and people down low.

Conservatives have deep distrust of government power, so I not only understand their privacy concerns, I share them.

Control is what gives you privacy.

In exchange for power, influence, command and a place in history, a president gives up the bulk of his privacy.