Quotes About Power

I have somewhere heard or read the frank confession of a Benedictine abbot: My vow of poverty has given me an hundred thousand crowns a year; my vow of obedience has raised me to the rank of a sovereign prince. — I forget the consequences of his vow of chastity.

He was sternly forbid to pitch his tents in a pleasant valley, lest he should infringe the distant awe that was due to the royal mansion.

For what fortress, (added Attila,) what city, in the wide extent of the Roman empire, can hope to exist, secure and impregnable, if it is our pleasure that it should be erased from the earth?

The provinces, long oppressed by the ministers of the republic, sighed for the government of a single person, who would be the master, not the accomplice, of those petty tyrants. The people of Rome, viewing, with a secret pleasure, the humiliation of the aristocracy, demanded only bread and public shows; and were supplied with both by the liberal hand of Augustus. The

In reality, Rome had grown too big for lots of people to handle its vast affairs any longer by committee.  

The fortunate ?tius, who was immediately promoted to the rank of patrician, and thrice invested with the honors of the consulship, assumed, with the title of master of the cavalry and infantry, the whole military power of the state;

What better way to destroy a civilization, society or a race than to set people into the wild oscillations which follow their turning over their judgment and decision-making faculties to a superhero?

eating dog food at the foot of the rich man's table.

Aware that a man has no more chance with a woman, armed with the offensive and defensive weapons of tongue, tears, nails, and bamboo, than in a river with an alligator, I, for the first time in my life, acted prudently, and fled the fight.

Here, though, the police do not exist to protect and serve. They exist to maintain terror through unimaginable atrocity.

Think of these as wedding bands, my love, the Grand Duke amusedly remarked. By the powers invested in me, I now pronounce us husband and wife, through lust and hatred, through indulgence and abuse-and you can rest assured, death will never do us apart.

I have always been very clear that I sold Essence to Time Warner with the expectation that the magazine would continue to exercise its power to galvanize black women--to inform, affirm, and empower them.

Celeste had no love for Henry either, but death had taken all his power and now she could afford a little bit of charity.

But my mother wanted her children to be educated by nuns and priests all dressed in black, the way it had been done down through the generations with her people. Taught by people who had a firm grasp of how big and awful the world could be.

They treat colored people like kings and queens in Washington, cause thas where the president lives. Would they treat colored people anything but good in a city where the president hangs his hat and pets his dog and snores besides Mrs. President every night? Now would they?

That was the trouble with being too highly born, Finbarr considered. The gods paid too much attention to you. It was ever thus in the Celtic world. Ravens would fly over the house to announce the death of a clan chief, swans would desert the lake. A king's bad judgement could affect the weather. And if you were a prince, the druids made prophesies about you from before the day you were born; and after that, there was no escape.

when men believed too strongly, it made them cruel.

Remember what Napoleon said: China is a sleeping giant. When she awakes, the world will tremble.

Edward Rutherfurd

Hay muchas clases de mujeriegos. A unos los mueve la vanidad o un sentimiento de poder; a otros, la avidez. Luc actuada movido por un simple motivo: una insondable curiosidad.

El resultado es una forma parecida al tronco de un árbol envuelta en una capa, de la que surge una gran cabeza con un cuello recio como el de un toro.

Keller hesitated. "I suppose," he said pleasantly, "that any system that gives power to a particular class will tempt that class to exploit the powerless. It seems to be human nature.

Always remember this, Henri. Men trade for profit. They are driven by greed. But debt is about fear, and fear is stronger than greed. The true power, the weapon that defeats all others, is debt. Fools search for gold. The wise man studies debt. That is the key to all business.

It is no accident, then, that each of our major wars has served to enhance the power of government in Washington: the Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.