Quotes About Power

Anger ... it's a paralyzing emotion ... you can't get anything done. People sort of think it's an interesting, passionate, and igniting feeling — I don't think it's any of that — it's helpless ... it's absence of control — and I need all of my skills, all of the control, all of my powers ... and anger doesn't provide any of that — I have no use for it whatsoever." [Interview with CBS radio host Don Swaim, September 15, 1987.]

Like any artist without an art form, she became dangerous.

King Zello and his daughter

I learned long ago that a good-looking man in the right suit with a winning smile can get what he wants. All it takes is the ability to tell a story.

You humans ... always looking for a sensei, always handing over responsibility for your actions to a higher power.

I was radicalised by office and I quickly realised that just getting rid of one government and replacing it with another one in which I had office did not necessarily change anything. A most vivid example was when marchers shouted, 'Thatcher! Thatcher! Out, Out, Out!' only to discover that they had elected Blair! Blair! and little had changed.

The British House of Lords is the British Outer Mongolia for retired politicians.

I have five questions that I ask people who have power, and I recommend them to the House. If I see someone who is powerful, be it a traffic warden, Rupert Murdoch, the head of a trade union or a Member of Parliament, I ask myself these five questions: "What power have you got? Where did you get it? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? How can we get rid of you?" That last question is crucial.

What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you

I think there are two ways in which people are controlled. First of all frighten people and secondly, demoralise them.

Broadcasting is really too important to be left to the broadcasters.

By the end of his sixteen-course meal in Buckingham Palace, Ramsay McDonald discovered he had changed his mind about the workers owning the means of production. From now on, he felt it better that the Dukes and Duchesses should continue to own the means of production. The workers would just have to make do with what was left over.

The Prime Minister keeps me on around here because I make him look good.

I think democracy is the most revolutionary thing in the world.

In the course of my life I have developed five little democratic questions. If one meets a powerful person--Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates--ask them five questions: "What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?" If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.

I don't think people realise how the establishment became established. It simply stole the land and property off the poor, surrounded themselves with weak minded sycophants for protection, gave themselves titles and have been wielding power ever since.

Odette never forgot her father's words: Them whitefellas, they can never touch the stars, no matter how clever they think they are.

To win power, we need self-discipline not self-indulgence; listening to what people are truly saying, not hearing only the parts we want to hear.

Well, America is never a laughingstock because it's too powerful for that. But people do want clarity and consistency.

Our ultimate weapon is not our guns but our beliefs.

Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile. This is a party of government, and I will lead it as a party of government.

The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.