Quotes About Power

Not surprisingly, nondemocratic regimes by their nature are built around the restriction of individual freedom.

Patrimonialism: supporters within the state benefit directly from their alliance with the ruler (corruption)

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.

We are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature has placed in our power…. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.

The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.

Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell ; and George the Third — ['Treason!' cried the Speaker] — may profit by their example . If this be treason, make the most of it.

Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Beside, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of Nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us.

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who comes near that precious jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. When you give up that force, you are ruined.

It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains.

N]o nations with a massive debt has ever remained a great power.

The American Century is over. Pax Americana has come to a close. Gone now is all the hubristic chatter of an American Empire. Gone is the "unipolar world" where the United States was the undisputed hegemonic power.

Had Britain not declared war on Germany in 1914, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and India would not have followed the Mother Country in. Nor would Britain's ally Japan. Nor would Italy, which London lured in with secret bribes of territory from the Habsburg and Ottoman empires. Nor would America have gone to war had Britain stayed out. Germany would have been victorious, perhaps in months. There would have been no Lenin, no Stalin, no Versailles, no Hitler, no Holocaust.

Jeffrey Dahmer's crimes against his victims were not about instilling fear, sadistic torture, or abuse. Dahmer killed because he had insatiable urges: lust, power, and complete sexual control over a passive male partner.

For the first time in his life, he was in complete control. He knew what he did was wrong, but there weren't any consequences, no punishment, no one to answer to. How could there be? No one knew but him.

However, if you use the phrase, "Yes, BUT…", you immediately come off as combative. You come off as if you're arguing with them or you are trying to correct them. This turns the conversation into a power struggle. Instead of an ally, you come off as an adversary obviously trying to take control of the agenda.

Your feelings and emotions have the ability to overpower you and completely color your thinking. But that's confusing feelings for facts. They are entirely separate things. Reality is in fact neutral.

Those that win at office politics definitely aren't the top performers.

All horsepower corrupts.

Once we had the Protestant ascendancy,' Cor Mogaill said. 'Now it's the Catholic ascendancy. And they both rule with the same mixture of self-interest and cynicism.

In writing this book, I send out signals, like a lighthouse beacon in whose power to illuminate the darkness, alas, I have no faith. But I live in hope.

the fear of God is the reverence we give to God Almighty because He has the power and authority to give us what we do deserve. The

Stories are the wildest things of all. Stories chase and bite and hunt.

But a knife ain't just a thing, is it? It's a choice, it's something you do . A knife says yes or no, cut or not, die or don't. A knife takes a decision out of your hand and puts it in the world and it never goes back again.

Knowledge is dangerous.