Quotes About Power

Washington. In Monroe's Cabinet, Secretary of

But they always stayed in the arena, grappling with each other and with Stalin to find a way to win. Had they failed, or truly fallen out with each other, we could be living in a different world.

And so while whites built and dreamed, people of color were subjugated and exploited by a rising nation that prided itself on the expansion of liberty. Those twin tragedies shaped us then and ever after.

One plays by the conventions of politics in order to be in power when the hour calls for unconventional decisions.

A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user….

Broadly put, philosophers think; politicians maneuver. Jefferson's genius was that he was both and could do both, often simultaneously. Such is the art of power.

History, then, mattered enormously, for it could repeat itself at any time in any generation.12 And if that history brought tyranny, it was to be fought at all costs.

The search for the point of temperate power between competing elements of life—the national government and the states, the states and the people—was far from over.

Long argued that both Democrats and Republicans had failed the country at one time or another. Power was concentrated in the hands of a self-serving financial and political elite. Only radical change, brought about by dynamic, unconventional leaders—leaders like Long—could make the nation the property of the people once more:

It was easy to speak theoretically and idealistically about politics when one is seeking power. The demands of exercising it once it is won, however, are so complex and fluid that ideological certitude is often among the first casualties of actual governing.

For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king, and there ought to be no other.

They all live in cities, together, and can act in a body readily and at all times; they give chief employment to the newspapers, and therefore have most of them under their command. The agricultural interest is dispersed over a great extent of country, have little means of intercommunication with each other, and feeling their own strength and will, are conscious that a single exertion of these will at any time crush the machinations against their government. Jefferson

George Washington was the first and greatest such example, a man called to power not only because of his views but also for his reassuring bearing. He was a man with whom the people felt comfortable. Jackson's political appeal came out of the same tradition—a tradition in which a leader creates a covenant of mutual confidence between himself and the broader public.

Joe began to get publicity-crazy," Smith recalled in an interview with the historian David M. Oshinsky. "And the other senators were now afraid to speak their minds, to take issue with him. It got to the point where some of us refused to be seen with people he disapproved of. A wave of fear had struck Washington.

Nothing makes a man come to grips more directly with his conscience than the Presidency….The burden of his responsibility literally opens up his soul. No longer can he accept matters as given; no longer can he write off hopes and needs as impossible. —LYNDON B. JOHNSON

In the 1790s, with the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Federalists sought not just to win elections but to eliminate their opponents altogether.

The perpetual threat of conflict—first with one European power, then with another—infused American politics with a sense of constant crisis. Both Federalists and Republicans believed the fate of the United States could turn on the confrontation of the hour. In the broad public discourse, driven by partisan editors publishing partisan newspapers, there seemed no middle ground, only extremes of opinion or of outcome.

He dreamed big but understood that dreams become reality only when their champions are strong enough and wily enough to bend history to their purposes. Broadly put, philosophers think; politicians maneuver. Jefferson's genius was that he was both and could do both, often simultaneously. Such is the art of power.

political fear can be "sparked by friction in the civic world" and "may dictate public policy, bring new groups to power and keep others out, create laws and overturn them.

fulcrum stood the brilliant but fallible

Thomas Jefferson was his father's son. He was raised to wield power. By example and perhaps explicitly he was taught that to be great—to be heeded—one had to grow comfortable with authority and with responsibility.

I suppose that when shamings are delivered like remotely administered drone strikes nobody needs to think about how ferocious our collective power might be.

We were much more frightening than Judge Ted Poe. The powerful, crazy, cruel people I usually write about tend to be in far-off places. The powerful, crazy, cruel people were now us. It felt like we were soldiers making war on other people's flaws, and there had suddenly been an escalation in hostilities.

When shamings are delivered like remotely administered drone strikes, nobody needs to think about how ferocious our collective power might be. The snowflake never needs to feel responsible for the avalanche.