Quotes About Power

The class war had turned democracy into a contest in legislative looting.

It may be true, as Lincoln supposed, that "you can't fool all the people all the time," but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country. Is

Communism brought a certain security to all who survived the diseases and accidents due to the poverty and ignorance of primitive society; but it did not lift them out of that poverty. Individualism brought wealth, but it brought, also, insecurity and slavery; it stimulated the latent powers of superior men, but it intensified the competition of life, and made men feel bitterly a poverty which, when all shared it alike, had seemed to oppress none.V

Slowly the increasing complexity of tools and trades subjected the unskilled or weak to the skilled or strong; every invention was a new weapon in the hands of the strong, and further strengthened them in their mastery and use of the weak.

a handful of might is better than a bagful of right.

For statesmanship is a science and an art; one must have lived for it and been long prepared. Only a philosopher-king is fit to guide a nation. Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and wisdom and political leadership meet in the same man,... cities will never cease from ill, nor the human race (473). This is the key-stone of the arch of Plato's thought.

Mob-rule is a rough sea for the ship of state to ride; every wind of oratory stirs up the waters and deflects the course. The upshot of such a democracy is tyranny or autocracy; the crowd so loves flattery, it is so "hungry for honey," that at last the wiliest and most unscrupulous flatterer, calling himself the "protector of the people" rises to supreme power

Bacon had done it, and Campanella had said, with Baconian pithiness, Tantum possumus quantum scimus —"Our power is proportioned to our knowledge." Perhaps

To check the growth of inequality, liberty must be sacrificed[.]

Yet democracy is on the whole inferior to aristocracy.92 For it is based on a false assumption of equality; it "arises out of the notion that those who are equal in one respect (e.g., in respect of the law) are equal in all respects; because men are equally free they claim to be absolutely equal.

It has been the one song of those who thirst after absolute power that the interest of the state requires that its affairs should be conducted in secret . . . .

Ruin, comes when the trader, whose heart is lifted up by wealth, becomes ruler

Magnanimity in politics," said Edmund Burke, "is not seldom the truest wisdom, and a great empire and little minds go ill together

Equality of power is an unstable condition; men are by nature unequal; and "he who seeks equality between unequals seeks an absurdity.

Scripture does not explain things by their secondary causes, but only narrates them in the order and style which has most power to move men... It's object is not to convince the reason, but to attract and last hold of the imagination. (p.162/543)

Then democracy comes: the poor overcome their opponents, slaughtering some and banishing the rest; and give to the people an equal share of freedom and power" (557).

In such cases the motives of the (usually hidden) leaders may be economic, but the result is largely determined by the passions of the mass.

Voltaire might say, "I have no scepter, but I have a pen.

For statesmanship is a science and an art; one must have lived for it and been long prepared. Only a philosopher-king is fit to guide a nation. "Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and wisdom and political leadership meet in the same man, . . . cities will never cease from ill, nor the human race" (473). This is the key-stone of the arch of Plato's thought.

Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principle.

Knowledge is power, not mere argument or ornament; it is not an opinion to be held... but a work to be done; and I... am laboring to lay the foundation not of any sect or doctrine, but of utility and power.

They who can treat secretly of the affairs of a nation have it absolutely under their authority; and as they plot against the enemy in time of war, so do they against the citizens in time of peace.134

The Bourbons might have preserved themselves," said Napoleon, "if they had controlled writing materials. The advent of cannon killed the feudal system; ink will kill the modern social organization.

States are built not on the ideals but on the nature of men.