Quotes About Power

I think they should be the rulers,' Juliana said, pausing. 'They always were the best. The British.

Exactly what powers of hell feed on: the best instincts in man.

And what good was a political strategist who couldn't look ahead to his own death? Without that he would have been merely another Hitler, who didn't want his country to survive him.

The gentle sounds of the choir singing "Amen, amen" are not to calm the congregation but to pacify the god.

Politics is the enemy of a sound economic entity, he mused. New laws, harsher tax rates, meddling . . . and now this.

Whom the gods notice they destroy. Be small . . . and you will escape the jealousy of the great.

A country is no better than its leader.

But you can't win. Axiomatically, you lose. Consider the premises of the situation. By definition, a Champion of the One True God triumphs; anything else would be a denial of His power.

The big economic forces had managed to remain free, although virtually everything else had been absorbed by the Government. Laws that had been eased away from the private person still protected property and industry.

When they want you they already have you; all they need is the paperwork.

The drive of unliving things is stronger than the drive of living things.

He gave up; the false cat had ceased functioning, so evidently the short — if that was what ailed the thing — had finished off the power supply and basic drive-train.

The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.

La Chiesa e Cosa Nostra hanno qualcosa in comune: una specie di distacco adamantino nei piani alti. I lavoretti sporchi ricadono sui pesci piccoli in fondo al barile.

and vast ugly teeth strove to crunch him, crunch him with avid relish.

in Phyllis' world there was no room for the harmless.

It is very warm," the wub said. "I understand that we are close to the jets. Atomic power. You have done many wonderful things with it—technically. Apparently, your scientific hierarchy is not equipped to solve moral, ethical—

All his life he had controlled machines, bent nature and the forces of nature to man and man's needs. The human race had slowly evolved until it was in a position to operate things, run them as it saw fit. Now all at once it had been plunged back down the ladder again, prostrate before a Power against which they were children.

One day I hoped some thoughtful historian would point out the close connection between the Mercedes-Benz motor car and Germany's favorite dictator and that the Lord would find a way to pay these bastards back for their help in bringing the Nazis to power and keeping them there.

As for what it's against - the story is against those who pervert and misuse religion, or any other kind of doctrine with a holy book and a priesthood and an apparatus of power that wields unchallengeable authority, in order to dominate and suppress human freedoms.

If a witch needs something, another witch will give it to her. If there is war to be fought, we don't consider cost one of the factors in deciding whether or not it is right to fight. Nor do we have any notion of honor. An insult to a bear is a deadly thing. To us...inconceivable. How could you insult a witch? What would it matter if you did?

Men and women are moved by tides much fiercer than you can imagine, and they sweep us all up into the current.

She had asked: What is he? A friend or an enemy? The alethiometer answered: He is a murderer. When she saw the answer, she relaxed at once. He could find food, and show her how to reach Oxford, and those were powers that were useful, but he might still have been untrustworthy or cowardly. A murderer was a worthy companion. She felt as safe with him as she'd done with Iorek Byrnison the armoured bear.

Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit.