Quotes About Power

The thing I'd like most in the world," I said to her, since at this point I might as well go on talking with her, "is to make clocks run backward." The woman gives some ordinary answer, such as, "You only have to move the hands." "No, with thought, by concentrating until I force time back," I say.

Literature is necessary to politics above all when it gives a voice to the one who doesn't have a voice, when it gives a name to the one who doesn't have a name, and especially to all that political language excludes or tends to exclude…Literature is like a ear that can hear more than Politics; Literature is like an eye that can perceive beyond the chromatic scale to which Politics is sensitive.

Haces bien en estar celoso. Pero tú pretendes someter los celos a la razón. –Claro: así los hago más eficaces. –Tú razonas demasiado. ¿Por qué se razona con el amor? –Para amarte más. Cualquier cosa, si se hace razonando, aumenta su poder.

Forse l'impero,pensò Kublai,non è altro che uno zodiaco di fantasmi della mente.

U?wiadomi?em sobie w?asne ograniczenia - powiedzia? mi. - W procesie lektury zachodzi co?, na co nie mam wp?ywu." Mog?em mu odpowiedzie?, ?e tej granicy nie mo?e przekroczy? nawet najbardziej wszechobecna policja ?wiata. Mo?emy zabroni? czytania, lecz w dekrecie zabraniaj?cym czytania da?oby si? wyczyta? co? z prawdy, której woleliby?my nigdy nie ujawnia?...

Jego [cesarza] zadanie to prowadzi? t? wojn?, która w danej chwili si? toczy, i co najwy?ej pomy?le? jeszcze o nast?pnej.

The historical events which mothers take part in acquire the greatness and invincibility of natural phenomena.

When examples of openness of thought come from a single ruler, they count for nothing, except to show that he alone can afford to be like that because he is king.

Il Re deve stare al gioco: non stipendia forse il Matto apposta per farsi contraddire e canzonare? È antica e saggia usanza nelle corti che il Matto o Giullare o Poeta eserciti la sua funzione di capovolgere e deridere i valori sui quali il sovrano basa il proprio dominio, e gli dimostri che ogni linea diritta nasconde un rovescio storto, ogni prodotto finito uno sconquasso di pezzi che non combaciano, ogni discorso filato un bla-bla-bla.

On the day when I know all the emblems," he asked Marco, "shall I be able to possess my empire, at last?" And the Venetian answered: "Sire, do not believe it. On that day you will be an emblem among emblems.

Qualcosa che ci sfugge deve pur restare... Perche' il potere abbia un oggetto su cui esercitarsi, uno spazio in cui allungare le sue braccia... Finche' so che al mondo c'e' qualcuno che fa dei giochi di prestigio solo per amore del gioco, finche' so che c'e' una donna che ama la lettura per la lettura, posso convincermi che il mondo continua... E ogni sera m'abbandono alla lettura, come quella lontana lettrice sconosciuta.

The obstinacy on which power is based is never so fragile as in the moment of its triumph.

You reason too much. Why in the world should love be reasoned?" "To love you you more. Everything increases its power if you do it by reasoning." "You live in the trees and you have the mentality of a lawyer with gout." "The boldest enterprises should be experienced with the simplest heart.

Every animal, every object, every relationship took on beneficial or malign powers that came to be called magical powers but should, rather, have been called narrative powers, potentialities contained in the world, in its ability to link itself to other worlds on the plane of discourse.

Let's be frank: every regime, even the most authoritarian, survives in a situation of unstable equilibrium, whereby it needs to justify constantly the existence of its repressive apparatus, therefore of something to repress.

wrong: Penthesilea is

Under the law established by the possessor of the greatest number of devices, sickness and the sick will flourish.

strong actors have a lower interest in a fight's outcome because their survival is not at stake, whereas weak actors have a high interest in a fight's outcome because their survival is at stake.

strong actors have a lower interest in a fight's outcome because their survival is not at stake, whereas weak actors have a high interest in a fight's outcome because their survival is at stake. A strong actor's low interests imply high political vulnerability, and a weak actor's high interests imply low political vulnerability.

The public school has become the established church of secular society.

Rodeado por herramientas todopoderosas, el hombre queda reducido a ser instrumento de sus instrumentos.

Una vez que un hombre o una mujer ha aceptado la necesidad de la escuela, es fácil presa de otras instituciones

Sexism is clearly not the continuation of patriarchal power relations in modern societies. Rather, it is a hitherto unthinkable individual degradation of one-half of humanity on a socio-biological grounds. The lower prestige assigned by patriarchal societies (of the Mediterranean or of any other type) must therefore be carefully distinguished from the personal degradation of each individual woman who, under the regime of sex, is forced to compete with men.

Only when we stop looking at male roles and forms of power as the norm and begin to look at female arrangements and perceive them as equally valid and significant - though perhaps different in form - can we see how male and female roles are intertwined, and begin to understand how human societies operate.