Quotes About Power

We each have our inner program for happiness, our plans by which we can be secure, esteemed, and in control, and are blissfully unaware that these cannot work for us for the long haul—without our becoming more and more control freaks ourselves. Something has to break our primary addiction, which is to our own power and our false programs for happiness.

For five hundred years, Christian teachers defined and redefined salvation almost entirely in individualistic terms, while well-disguised social evils—greed, pride, ambition, deceit, gluttony—moved to the highest levels of power and influence, even in our churches.

They look like the oppressors, but have no doubt they are really the oppressed.

The lie was that we believed that we believed all people were created equal! What made us think we were this great free society? Those at the top believed it then, and we at the top believe it two hundred years later. That's the power of myth.

The only free positions in this world are at the bottom and at the edges of things.

Jesus was killed in a collision of cross-purposes, conflicting interests, and half-truths, caught between the demands of an empire and the religious establishment of his day.

When you put the Gospels in someone's life who hasn't walked any journeys yet, who hasn't lost, suffered, longed, and thirsted for anything, they will use it for power - I promise you. For personal power, reputational power, economic power, because that's where the ego always goes. We will use God for our own purposes which is the ultimate idolatry. But if you have made the journey into powerless somehow, I will be happy to put the gospel in your hands.

We are all spiritually powerless, however, and not just those physically addicted to a substance, which is why I address this book to everyone.

Women stuff' is the hidden energy behind almost all the justice issues. The movement toward nonviolence and disarmament, the movements that deal with homelessness and refugee problems, with the raping of the earth and its resources, with sexual and physical abuse issues, with the idolatry of profit and the corporation, and with the rejection of the poor will not move beyond the present impasse until the underlying issues of power, prestige, and possessions are exposed for the lie that they are.

Like the Christ Mystery itself, the deep feminine often works underground and in the shadows, and—from that position—creates a much more intoxicating message. While church and culture have often denied the Divine Feminine roles, offices, and formal authority, the feminine has continued to exercise incredible power at the cosmic and personal levels.

he just tells him to "descend" from his power position, "go away and get rid of all your possessions." Money is only the metaphor here; the real possession he has to get rid of is his ego.

Endless theorizing, the taking of sides, and opinions about which we could be right or wrong, trumped and toppled the universally available gift of the Divine Indwelling, the real "incarnation" which still has the power to change the world.

By the feminine principle I mean everything vulnerable, interior, powerless, subtle, personal, intimate, and relational. By the masculine principle I mean everything clear, rational, linear, ordered, in control, bounded, provable, and hard. Both the feminine and masculine are good, but they must balance each other.

Max would conclude, that's who I want to be. The pope. And I'll do the same thing he does. I'll keep all the goddamn money.

people confuse power with will because so few of them have the foggiest idea what they want. Absent any knowledge, will remains impotent. A limp dick, as it were." She regarded him, eyebrow arched. "The lucky few who happen actually to know what they want are said to have will-power.

people are forever confusing will with power

Come sit on my lap. I want to hear all about your sexual harassment lunch. -Hank to his secretary, Rachel

There was nothing like fear to make democracy real.

An ugly blue- steeled Mauser leaped into his hand as his finger curled hungrily around its trigger.

Rico'nun 'hurda' tan?m?na uyduÄŸunu söylemek güç olsa da, o kendisinin teknik bilgi aç?s?ndan 'gerileme dönemine' girmek üzere olduÄŸunu düÅŸünüyor. Bu noktada, toplumun gençliÄŸe yapt??? vurguyla, kendisinin yaÅŸlanma konusundaki fikirleri birleÅŸiyor. Toplumsal önyarg?, kiÅŸinin içindeki güçten düÅŸme korkusunu körüklüyor.

Wherever I found religion in my life I found strife, the attempt of one individual or group to rule another in the name of God. The naked will to power seemed always to walk in the wake of a hymn.

absolute power is corrupting

In the old days we were concerned with mobs, with thousands of men running amuck in the streets. The mob has conquered completely. When the mob has grown so vast that you cannot see it, then it is everywhere.

Cross felt that at the heart of all political movements the concept of the basic inequality of man was enthroned and practiced, and the skill of politicians consisted in how cleverly they hid this elementary truth and gained votes by pretending the contrary