Quotes About Power

Advertising," he wrote, "now compares with such long-standing institutions as the school and the church in the magnitude of its social influence. It dominates the media, it has vast power in the shaping of popular standards and it is really one of the very limited groups of institutions which exercise social control.

In 1947, Kennan wrote, "The men of the Kremlin would suddenly discover that this fluid and subtle oriental movement which they thought they held in the palm of their hand had quietly oozed away between their fingers and there was nothing left there but a ceremonial Chinese bow and a polite giggle.

He was very good, it turned out, at outlining the flaws in the government as long as someone else was in charge of the government.

The Kennedys demanded loyalty out of confidence, Johnson demanded it out of insecurity.

The early Washington years seemed to confirm the Bundy legend. He was at the center of things, darting in and out of the President's office ("Goddammit, Mac," someone heard Kennedy say, "I've been arguing with you about this all week long," and that was power—being able to argue with the President all week long).

The networks at their worst (were) at once greedy and timid.

Events," wrote George Ball, paraphrasing Emerson "are in the saddle, and ride mankind.

A legitimate government does not lose face easily, but an insecure government with little in the way of indigenous roots takes its image very seriously.

If the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had seemed to inaugurate a brand-new chapter in the history of warfare, supposedly making all other weapons obsolete and creating a world where military power rested only with the richest, most technologically advanced nations, then the Korean battlefield defeats of early July 1950 shattered that belief

Newspapers might have as much to do in shaping the course of public events as politicians

David Halberstam quoted Lyndon Johnson saying of a staffer: "I want him to kiss my ass in Macy's window at high noon and tell me it smells like roses.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

the neoliberal turn is in some way and to some degree associated with the restoration or reconstruction of the power of economic elites.

a button that elites can press to open the door to the masses

This brings us back to Marx's method. One of the most important things to glean from a careful study of Volume I is how Marx's method works. I personally think this is just as important as the propositions he derives about how capitalism works, because once you have learned the method and become both practiced in its execution and confident in its power, then you can use it to understand almost anything.

Volcker, Reagan, Thatcher, and Deng Xaioping all took minority arguments that had long been in circulation and made them majoritarian (though in no case without a protracted struggle).

It is no longer the case, if it ever was, that capitalism can be construed as a peaceful, lawful, and non-coercive system.

Powerful corporations in alliance with an interventionist state were seen to be running the world in individually oppressive and socially unjust ways.

There's something visceral about a storm in the night, how it tugs at the eaves and rattles the windows like some beast trying to get in.

It's all very well to have a kind heart, but kind hearts don't rule castles.

But, he added, in a rare moment of self-revelation, "such belong not to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle.

There is no such thing as liberty. You only change one sort of domination for another. All we can do is to choose our master.

Your salvation is free, but the anointing will cost you everything. The price of the anointing is simply surrender. You want to know the key to power, honestly and truly? You have to die to self. Power is found in the death of the flesh.

The winds of earth are old and sane But tell me, tell me when you know — What happens to a hurricane That hasn't any place to go?