Quotes About Power

At last, his companions approached his bedside and implored him to name his successor: To whom do you leave your kingdom? They leaned close to hear his words. With great effort Alexander answered in a whisper: To the strongest. With that, the king of the world closed his eyes and breathed his last.

In all of life, but especially in war, the greatest power belongs to fortune. —CAESAR

Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart. —Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind (1954)

A good way to avoid crimes of obedience is to assert one's personal authority and always take full responsibility for one's actions.23

It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable. —Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind

Evil consists in intentionally behaving in ways that harm, abuse, demean, dehumanize, or destroy innocent others—or using one's authority and systemic power to encourage or permit others to do so on your behalf.

Power said to the world, "You are mine." The world kept it prisoner on her throne. Love said to the world, "I am thine." The world gave it the freedom of her house. —Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds22

humanity can be transformed by power and by powerlessness. Underlying

recognizing the early signs of toxicity in our leaders can enable us to take preventive medicine, not passively imbibe their seductive poison.33

That seduction or initiation into evil can be understood by recognizing that most actors are not solitary figures improvising on the empty stage of life. Rather, they are often an ensemble of different players, on a stage with various props and changing costumes, scripts, and stage directions from producers and directors.

Time and oppression are the fathers of rebellious invention.

At that moment, the Stanford Prison Experiment was changed into the Stanford Prison, not by any top-down formal declarations by the staff but by this bottom-up declaration from one of the prisoners themselves.

There is an important message here about the power of words, labels, rhetoric, and stereotyped labeling, to be used for good or evil. We need to refashion the childhood rhyme "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never harm me," to alter the last phrase to "but bad names can kill me, and good ones can comfort me.

Start with an honest analysis of why you are in opposition, not in government.

Art has tremendous power to shape culture and touch the human heart. Its artifacts embody the ideas and desires of the coming generation. This means that what is happening in the arts today is prophetic of what will happen in our culture tomorrow. It also means that when Christians abandon the artistic community, we lose a significant opportunity to coniniu- nicate Christ to our culture.

Authoritarianism—the familial, social, and political obsession with order, control, and obedience—is rooted in violence and coercion.

But if religion is more than the attainment of power and privilege, if it is the doorway into beauty and mystery and meaning, then not only is divinity unnecessary but it is an impediment, for it implies that enlightenment is beyond the reach of mortals.

The administration of the country appeared to me then – as it does now – as a sorry and sordid play, in which the politicians are the actors, the Pressmen are the dramatists, vested interests pack the house, and – the public pay the price!

Beamish had seen the government as dominated by Jews, with Rufus Isaacs, Sir Alfred Mond and Edwin Montagu as Lloyd George's advisors; Britain was now ruled by a 'Jewalition' and Jews were responsible for a quarter of the war's casualties.

something is fated to occur, then no matter how hard one tries to change this, what good will it do?' Above they use this doctrine to persuade the kings, dukes, and great officials and below they deploy it to interfere with work of the people.

Corruption springs from light: 'tis one same power Creates, preserves, destroys; matter whereon It works, on e'er self-transmutative form, Common to now the living, now the dead.

Man is a military animal, glories in gunpowder, and loves parade.

On returning to Germany, he rejoined Hitler, whom he believed to be the only man who could make Germany great again.

The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.