Quotes About Power

Fire, they said, is no natural friend to man. That is why one must humor it.

man-made lightning

Belief is a powerful lens; it can shape the world world to it.

I asked you where you're from," the leader repeated. "Cuz if you were from around here, you'd know these are our woods. No one comes or goes without paying a price. You've heard of Satan, haven't you?

What else matters but pedigree and rumor, my lord? Those things make the world go around.

Stories are nations, empires.

You can't just say that, Pasquale. Those words have tremendous power. It's how people end up married.

I could write for days about the disappointment of politics.

I won't pretend that I didn't like the voice, the power that changing horoscopes gave me.

This is what happens when your life is authored not by God, but by David Mamet.

I've always been surprised at how it stings, the laughter of small men. The smaller the man, the more the laughter hurts, as if saying, I may be nothing, but you are less.

I am choosing a love that defies boundaries and a life that defies boundaries. That is the power of Celeste.

That's how a storm with such power happens; you sense the build and darkness, you prepare as best you can, you do what you can to get through it even as it devastates your entire world. Whatever you do, however much you brace yourself, you will still be caught up in forces that you cannot control. So the question is how to navigate through the chaos. It takes thought, and trust, and serenity.

But it was him, not God or any other... illusory power... who tore me away from that fire. I give credit where credit is due. One human being made a choice, he acted, and I owe him my life. No god killed my parents, nearly killed James, and spared me. I know that, and I can't go back and believe in things that I used to believe in.. or that I used to want to believe in. I don't know how much faith I had to lose that night, but whatever I have is gone now

There's no death wish. Ironically, it's the opposite. We're after an enhanced sense of life. We trip over death, but don't take it. The process, the ritual of this, is all for the thrill and the power from the pleasure that seeps into every part of you during dying and surfacing. The intoxication is nearly impossible to fight.

They had watched him make a masterwork of scapegoating Jews for Germany's fall from power and persuade his followers that enlightenment, humanity, and tolerance were weaknesses—"Jewish" ideas that led to defeat.

Years later, as a professor, Martin would try to find the words to articulate the power of togetherness in a world where togetherness had been corrupted—and to explore the effect of the music, the surprising lengths the people had gone to to hear it and to play it, as evidence that music, and art in general, are basic requirements of the human soul. Not a luxury but a compulsion.

That's the power of faith in action. It's not about talking and judging. It's about doing.

One day I will rule the world with a goat by my side!

War will bring the revolution; revolution will stop the war

The sky was different, without color, taut and unforgiving. But the water was the most unforgiving thing, nearly black at times, cold enough, I knew, to kill me, violent enough to break me apart. The waves were immense, battering rocky beaches without sand. The farther I went, the more desolate it became, more than any place I'd been, but for this very reason the landscape drew me, claimed me as nothing had in a long time.

I think that the power of art is the power to wake us up, strike us to our depths, change us. What are we searching for when we read a novel, see a film, listen to a piece of music? We are searching, through a work of art, for something that alters us, that we weren't aware of before. We want to transform ourselves, just as Ovid's masterwork transformed me.

I had never traveled alone before and I discovered that I liked it. No one in the world knew where I was, no one had the ability to reach me. It was like being dead, my escape allowing me to taste that tremendous power my mother possessed forever.

Without language you can't feel that you have a legitimate, respected presence. You are without a voice, without power.