Quotes About Power

wily minds and cold hearts were the combination Bronowsky found most common in English administrators.

Knowledge was always purposive: it was characterised by a will to dominate or appropriate.

Foucault recognised that the most important aspect of power lay in social relations. Individuals might have power in the form of domination and constraint; but more important, power was also involved in the production and use of knowledge.

As he later remarked, sometimes freedom can become as repressive as direct repression.

The emergence of any knowledge system is always linked with a shift in power.

When you have conservative Republican stalwarts like Jim Demint (South Carolina) and Ron Paul (Texas) as well as self-identified Democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders all fighting against the Federal Reserve, you know that it is no longer an issue of Right versus Left.

COMPLETE AMNESTY TO THOSE IN POWER, GOVERNMENTS AND LEADERS WHO HAVE BEEN SUPPRESSING THE TRUTH. THEY CAN'T BE HELD LIABLE FOR ANY PAST WRONG DEEDS. IT IS THE ONLY WAY THESE LEADERS CAN COME FORWARD WITH THE TRUTH. IT IS NECESSARY THAT YOU DO THIS IN ORDER TO WORK TOGETHER AND SURVIVE.

The guides explained that they want to help us realize we are not alone, and that there is a better way of living and evolving that is sustainable. But, before they give us the tools and technology to continue our evolution, they need to be assured that whatever they do for us will be for the benefit of ALL humanity, not just those in power who will use it to further their own agendas.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.1 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower

A parallel system is that of the military-industrial-media complex, along with the more distant politico-media complex and prison-industrial complex.

I had cooperated. I could not have refused. I was smitten with her, half in love but also afraid, because in my life (and she seemed to know this) I had not loved anyone without having been wounded. Love was power and possession, love caused pain: you were never more exposed than when you were in love, never more wounded; possession was an enslavement, something stifling.

it was just a version of Rimbaud in Harar: the exile, a selfish beast with modest fantasies of power, secretly enjoying a life of beer drinking and scribbling and occasional mythomania in a nice climate where there were no interruptions, such as unwelcome letters or faxes or cell phones. It was an eccentric ideal, life lived off the map.¨

In countries where all the crooked politicians wear pinstriped suits, the best people are bare-assed.

most of the portraits of Niyazov all over Turkmenistan showed him smiling, though he never looked less reliable, or less amused, than when he was smiling. His smile – and this may be true of all political leaders – was his most sinister feature.

Someone knows—someone in the government, or the army, or the police. This is a government of secrets. If there are secrets, there can be no justice.

or flying over the chaos in their private helicopters.

So Walmart bribed Mexican officials to redraw the map in its favor, the map was published, and the big-box horror store was built, its obscene size swelling over the pyramids. But this was not the end.

Interrupting me, he shouted, "What I am saying is that your plates are illegal. Do you understand? You are breaking the law by driving on our roads." "I have a permit," I said. He had now worked himself into a froth of spitting rage, and as he screamed out of his congested face I saw that he was wrapped in belts, a holstered pistol in one, handcuffs in another, a truncheon, a phone, chrome-plated chains

Do you know what I can do to you? Spoken by an enraged policeman in Mexico, that statement seizes your attention, and so does "Puedo hacer lo que quiero"—I can do what I want.

The murderous, self-elected, megalomaniacal head of state with the morals of a fruit fly, with his decades in power, along with his vain, flitting shopaholic wife, his hangers-on, and his goon squad, is an obscene feature of African life that is not likely to disappear.

The murderous, self-elected, megalomaniacal head of state with the morals of a fruit fly is an obscene feature of African life that is not likely to disappear.

Reading 1984 might get people thinking about it,' I said.

People in power—police, politicians—believe they can get away with murder.

Telling the truth and being ethical often keeps people from political power, but doing the right thing, always, without exception, is all that matters in the long run, and is ultimately powerful. That's why the true heroes of the civil rights struggle were never politicians. They were humble folk on a mission, enduring sit-ins and organizing marches and debates. When they began to succeed, the politicians, seeing an opportunity, followed them.