Quotes About Power

David foster Wallace: '...the revelatory power of freakishly thorough noticing, of corralling and controlling detail.[...] he trains you to study the world through the lens of his prose.' NYTimes, 7 Feb 2016

Evil can be a teacher, if you look at the wisdom of its negative power.

While Freud wrote of the drive toward pleasure or sex, and Adler of a drive toward power, Frankl believed that the human will to meaning was at least as strong a force in making us into who we are. While

Alfred Adler was a member of Freud's original inner circle, but broke away because he disagreed that sex was the prime mover behind human behavior. He was more interested in how our early environments shape us, believing that we all seek greater power by trying to make up for what we perceive we lacked in childhood—his famous theory of "compensation.

If Adler's theory of human action relates to power, concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl's brand of existential psychology, "logotherapy," posits that the human species is uniquely made to seek meaning.

When any of these forces gains the upper hand, it is usually because of deep-seated feelings of inadequacy. Yet

Before turning his mind to creativity, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced Chick-sent-me-hi) wrote a celebrated book called Flow. Its insight was that it is a mistake to pursue happiness itself. Rather, we should recognize when we are genuinely happy—what we are doing when we feel powerful and "true"—and do more of those things. Flow

Change Dynasty

There used to be this country called the Soviet Union it's not there anymore. Our technology was better than theirs.

The control of information is something the elite always does, particularly in a despotic form of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people.

What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It's not good at much else.

I am a politician which means I am a liar and a crook. When I am not kissing babies I am stealing their lollypops.

Remember, for every shot you fire, someone, somewhere, is making money.

They have destroyed a man, who three months ago they doted on, because they are afraid of what they might learn about human nature. They have learned enough and they have turned the key on it. We are near the end of the century and are as primitive as we were at its beginning.

When individuals become angry with one another, an injury of some sort will likely occur. When governments become angry, entire civilisations are wiped out.

It's not in the interest of most mapping companies to make those changes as they occur, but if you give the power to local people, you can be sure that you're always getting the best information from the folks that actually drive those roads every day.

The Solyndra scandal occurred because of people with money who have influence and power.

In many parts of Mindanao, brownouts are a frequent occurrence.

The ocean is a mighty harmonist.

I like mountains and oceans and stuff, which is where I've always felt some sort of power of meaning, but that's not necessarily spiritual.

The first time I went to Iraq was October 2002, when Saddam was still in power, and then, subsequently, in January of 2003, about three-and-a-half months before the U.S. invasion. So, I got to see the before and after of Iraq, basically, before and after the war.

If heavy metal bands ruled the world, we'd be a lot better off.

It's good to be good at playing defence, but the best defence is a strong offence.

It is not difficult to govern. All one has to do is not to offend the noble families.