Quotes About Power

I was excited because getting to know oneself was exciting. I was beginning to believe that I had the power to influence my own personality.

I imagined how much pressure he must have felt as a reviewer who could destroy entire careers. Who would want that sort of power? Especially over something as simple and charming as food?

Governments didn't have to listen to the people until the people made it hurt not to listen.

Noam held a storm in his hands, and he couldn't feel a thing.

No, no, now you listen—you—this whole time. The bruises—it was Lehrer. Not Gordon. Lehrer. He—I was fourteen, Noam! I was . . . but he . . . and I couldn't tell anyone because, god, didn't even need his power!" Dara laughed, a mad sound, and he wasn't touching Noam anymore, had both hands pressed up against his own skull. "No one believed me.

You never know what a man -- or a woman -- has inside: how much grit, how much courage, how much willingness to change. When someone draws on those qualities, you're looking at a person of substance. And power. And promise. This world needs more of those.

We must always be mindful of the power of our words and actions. They have a ripple effect that can touch many lives, both now and in the future. We must act with integrity, with compassion, and with a deep respect for the interconnectedness of all things (Kneubuhl 34)

In a world where men have always been in charge, it was hard for women to break through. But Ka'ahumanu was different. She was born to rule (Kneubuhl 27)

Americans on the average do not trust intellectuals, but they are cowed by power and stunned by celebrity.

I was in close quarters with some representative specimens of the most dangerous creature in the history of the world, the white man in a suit.

I pitied the French for their naïveté in believing they had to visit a country in order to exploit it. Hollywood was much more efficient, imagining the countries it wanted to exploit.

no one asks poor people if they want war.

Although every country thought itself superior in its own way, was there ever a country that coined so many "super" terms from the federal bank of its narcissism, was not only superconfident but also truly superpowerful, that would not be satisfied until it locked every nation of the world into a full nelson and made it cry Uncle Sam?

You must claim America, she said. America will not give itself to you. If you do not claim America, if America is not in your heart, America will throw you into a concentration camp or a reservation or a plantation.

My...principles in talking to a woman: do not ask permission; do not say hello; ...do not let her speak first...give a woman the chance to reject something else besides me...statements, not questions, were less likely to lead to no.

Not to own the means of production can lead to premature death, but not to own the means of representation is also a kind of death.

Marriage is slavery, I said. And when God made us human—if God exists—He didn't intend for us to be slaves to each other.

As the crapulent major said, A man doesn't need balls in this country, Captain. The women all have their own.

I was no more than the garment worker who made sure the stitching was correct in an outfit designed, produced, and consumed by the wealthy white people of the world. They owned the means of production, and therefore the means of representation, and the best that we could ever hope for was to get a word in edgewise before our anonymous deaths.

The word that identified what we did not possess was "money," . . . The other word was "votes," so that together "money votes" was "open sesame" to the deep caverns of the American political system.

I was in close quarters with some representative specimens of the most dangerous creature in the history of the world, the white man in a suit. Gentlemen,

Our society had been a kleptocracy of the highest order, the government doing its best to steal from the Americans, the average man doing his best to steal from the government, the worst of us doing our best to steal from each other.

the most dangerous creature in the history of the world, the white man in a suit.

Easier to get a gun here than to vote or drive. You