Quotes About Power

Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave Awaits alike the inevitable hour: The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Some truths hit harder than others.

Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules; and history records that whenever science and orthodoxy have been fairly opposed, the latter has been forced to retire from the lists, bleeding and crushed if not annihilated; scotched, if not slain.

A strong woman who recklessly throws away her strength, she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away.

She was of the stuff of which great men's mothers are made. She was indispensable to high generation, feared at tea-parties, hated in shops, and loved at crises.

It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law

The obligation of subjects to the sovereign is understood to last as long, and no longer, than the power lasteth by which he is able to protect them.

The right of nature... is the liberty each man hath to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature that is to say, of his own life.

I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.

During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war, as is of every man, against every man.

In the state of nature profit is the measure of right.

Humans are driven by a perpetual and restless desire of power.

Scientia potentia est. Knowledge is power.

Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.

Covenants, without the sword, are but words and of no strength to secure a man at all.

Blessed are they who have the gift of making friends, for it is one of God's best gifts. It involves many things, but above all, the power of going out of one's self and appreciating whatever is noble and loving in another.

This intense desire to control is an attempt to maintain dignity in spite of low self-regard. Think about it. In addition to keeping everything safe, the exercise of power temporarily boosts angry men's low self-esteem. [...] Like many kings and other powerful people, however, angry men will soon doubt the affection of those they control. They will always wonder if they are "really" loved by family members, or if their family is just acting that way out of fear.

The toughest thing about the power of trust is that it's very difficult to build and very easy to destroy. The essence of trust building is to emphasize the similarities between you and the customer.

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens . . . There has never been a moment of my life in which I should have relinquished for it the enjoyments of my family, my farm, my friends and books.

Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.

I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but people. And if we think them not enlightened enough, the remedy is not to take the power from them, but to inform them by education

the true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best . . . (for) when all government . . . shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as . . . oppressive as the government from which we separated

When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated