Quotes About Power

I thought that prejudicial adjectives and liberal clichés in the reportorial copy undercut the power of the facts.

The conversion of all truths into questions of power has attacked the very heart of the distinction between true and false.

When I told Yoko about my visit with Paul, she said something to the effect that I had fallen under his spell.

HUNTER'S FIRST PIECE was "Freak Power in the Rockies: The Battle of Aspen.

A bad king revels in his importance. A good one hates his office. He spends himself into infirmity quashing deadly little plots to make power the tool of the greedy.

Light,' said Asandir, 'and shadow, granted intact upon conception. That's enough to destroy the Mistwraith, but only if the half-brothers work jointly.

You always did like to run things, never mind your crafty knack for making everyone believe that somebody else was in charge.

But a parcel of walled soil does not make the heart of a ruler or define the nobility of a people!

Many populist victors continue to behave like victims; majorities act like mistreated minorities.

In addition to being antielitist, populists are always antipluralist. Populists claim that they, and they alone, represent the people.

egy PiS-kormány vagy egy Fidesz-kormány nem csupán egy PiS-államot vagy egy Fidesz-államot alakít ki; arra törekszik, hogy létrehozza a PiS-népet, illetve a Fidesz-népet (gyakran valamiféle ezzel megbízott, kormányközeli civil társadalom segédletével). A populisták megteremtik azt a homogén népet, aminek mindig is a nevében beszéltek.

populists have no problem with representation as long as they are the representatives; similarly, they are fine with elites as long as they are the elites leading the people.

In Italy, it is not Beppe Grillo's complaints about Italy's la casta that should lead one to worry about him as a populist but his assertion that his movement wants (and deserves) nothing less than 100 percent of the seats in parliament, because all other contenders are supposedly corrupt and immoral.

Opportunism has suffered the emasculation of being converted into a principle;

populists are not generally "against institutions," and they are not destined to self-destruct once in power. They only oppose those institutions that, in their view, fail to produce the morally (as opposed to empirically) correct political outcomes. And that happens only when they are in opposition. Populists in power are fine with institutions—which is to say, their institutions.

Populists are, after all, often deemed to be heirs of the Jacobins.

Populist constitutions are designed to limit the power of nonpopulists, even when the latter form the government. Conflict then becomes inevitable. The constitution ceases to be a framework for politics and instead is treated as a purely partisan instrument to capture the polity.

What is called music today is all too often only a disguise for the monologue of power. However, and this is the supreme irony of it all, never before have musicians tried so hard to communicate with their audience, and never before has that communication been so deceiving. Music now seems hardly more than a somewhat clumsy excuse for the self-glorification of musicians and the growth of a new industrial sector.

He remembers noticing his dad's shadow was shorter than the others, and he had a visceral sense his father was weaker than the rest, and that he was more dangerous as a weak person with a lot of power than a powerful person with a lot of power.

The difference between a kleptocrat and a wise statesman, between a robber baron and a public benefactor, is merely one of degree: a matter of just how large a percentage of the tribute extracted from producers is retained by the elite, and how much the commoners like the public uses to which the redistributed tribute is put.

In contrast, once food can be stockpiled, a political elite can gain control of food produced by others, assert the right of taxation, escape the need to feed itself, and engage full-time in political activities.

Why you white man have so much cargo and we New Guineans have so little? (asked Yali)

When you have seen the errors in which you live, you will understand the good that we have done you by coming to your land by order of his Majesty the King of Spain. Our Lord permitted that your pride should be brought low and that no Indian should be able to offend a Christian.

Pizarro captured Atahuallpa within a few minutes after the two leaders first set eyes on each other. Pizarro proceeded to hold his prisoner for eight months, while extracting history's largest ransom in return for a promise to free him. After the ransom—enough gold to fill a room 22 feet long by 17 feet wide to a height of over 8 feet—was delivered, Pizarro reneged on his promise and executed Atahuallpa.