Quotes About Power

Nature takes no notice of the thoughts of men.

It is easier to command a lapdog or a mule for a whole day than one's own fate for half-an-hour.

Even where the Faith is preserved men pursue wealth and power inordinately. Where the Faith is lost they pursue nothing else.

Here richly, with ridiculous display,The Politician's corpse was laid away.While all of his acquaintance sneered and slangedI wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.

Whatever happens, we have got The Maxim gun, and they have not.

The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself.

Write as the wind blows and command all words like an army!

The accursed power which stands on privilege( and goes with women, champagne and bridge) Broke - and democracy resumed her reign ( which goes with bridge and women and champagne.

And you are going to close the gates, because I told you to close the gates.

All causes are good,' Yallin told her calmly. 'And those exact same causes are all bad, depending on which side a body's on. Regent Pettibone and his followers certainly thought your mother's cause was a bad one. To my mind, causes aren't about good or bad, in the end. They're about power. That's what makes them so dangerous.

There's a feeling of power in reserve, a power that drives right through the bone, like the shiver you sense in the shaft of an axe when you take it into your hand. You can strike, or you can not strike, and if you choose to hold back the blow, you can still feel inside you the resonance of the omitted thing.

There is a pause, while she turns the great pages of her volume of rage, and puts her finger on just the right word.

He knows different now. It's the living that chase the dead. The long bones and skulls are tumbled from their shrouds, and words like stones thrust into their rattling mouths: we edit their writings, we rewrite their lives. Thomas More had spread the rumor that Little Bilney, chained to the stake, had recanted as the fire was set. It wasn't enough for him to take Bilney's life away; he had to take his death too.

A man's power is in the half-light, in the half-seen movements of his hand and the unguessed-at expression of his face. It is the absence of facts tat frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.

Erasmus says that you should praise a ruler even for qualities he does not have. For the flattery gives him to think. And the qualities he presently lacks, he might go to work on them.

When have I, when have I ever forced anyone to do anything, he starts to say: but Richard cuts in, "No, you don't, I agree, it's just that you are practiced at persuading, and sometimes it's quite difficult, sir, to distinguish being persuaded by you from being knocked down in the street and stamped on." -Richard (?) nee Cromwell to Thomas Cromwell,358

It was not by a serpent, but by paper and ink that evil came into the world.

Edward Seymour says, 'You should have been a bishop, Cromwell.' 'Edward,' he says, 'I should have been Pope.

How many men can say, as I must, 'I am a man whose only friend is the King of England'? I have everything, you would think. And yet take Henry away, and I have nothing.

The king believes that even if he were not king, he would still be a great man. This is because God likes him. He needs to be liked and he needs to be right. But above all he needs to be listened to, with very close attention. Never enter a contest of wills with the king. Do not flatter him. Instead, give him something he can take credit for. Ask him questions to which you know the answers. Do not ask him the other sort of question.

The king never does an upleasent thing. Lord Cromwell does it for him.

You know young Francis Weston? He that waits on the king? His people are giving out that you're a Hebrew... Next time you're at court, take your cock out and put it on the table and see what he says to that. ~ I do that anyway, if the conversation flags.

Henry stirs into life. 'Do I retain you for what is easy? Do you think it is for your personal beauty? The charm of your presence? I keep you, Master Cromwell, because you are as cunning as a bag of serpents. But do not be a viper in my bosom. You know my decision. Execute it.' pg. 585

The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes: a counter pushed across a table, a pen stroke that alters the force of a phrase, a woman's sigh as she passes and leaves on the air a trail of orange flower or rose water; her hand pulling close the bed curtain, the discreet sigh of flesh against flesh.