Quotes About Power

The touch to which one resigns oneself because all resistance appears hopeless – and particularly so as regards the future – has, in our society, become the arrest . The feel of the hand of authority on his shoulder is usually enough to make a man give himself up without having to be actually seized. He cowers and goes quietly.

La morte quale minaccia è la moneta del potere. Qui è facile mettere una moneta sull'altra e accumulare enormi capitali. Chi vuole riuscire ad aggredire il potere deve guardare negli occhi senza timore il comando e trovare i mezzi per sottrargli la sua spina.

Romani su klinovi koje neki glumac što piše zabija u ?vrstu li?nost svojih ?italaca. Što bol?e prora?una klin i otpor, to ?e ta li?nost ostati raspolu?enija. Trebalo bi da država zabrani romane.

It is those who devote themselves to killing who have power.

If gazelles had a religion and the lion was their god they could, in order to appease his appetite, voluntarily surrender one of their number to him. This is exactly what happens among men: religious sacrifice springs from a state of crowd fear. It serves to halt the pursuit and, for a while, stil the hunger of the hostile power.

La massa è sempre una sorta di fortezza assediata, ma assediata in senso duplice: essa ha il nemico dinnanzi alle mura, e ha il nemico in cantina. Durante lo scontro la massa attira sempre più persone. Dinnanzi a tutte le porte si adunano i suoi nuovi amici e chiedono imperiosamente di essere accolti.

Meekness, then, was not weakness but relying fully on Gods power as Moses had.

He explained to me with great insistence that every question posessed a power that did not lie in the answer.

I am not so naïve as to believe that this slim volume will change the course of history or shake the conscience of the world. Books no longer have the power they once did. Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.

Moishe] explained to me, with great emphasis, that every question possessed a power that was lost in the answer.... And why do you pray, Moishe?' I asked him. I pray to the God within me for the strength to ask Him the real questions.

every question possessed a power that was lost in the answer . . .

Not all games are innocent. Some come dangerously close to cruelty.

A word is worth a thousand pictures.

We're alone, but we are capable of communicating to one another both our loneliness and our desire to break through it. You say, 'I'm alone.' Someone answers, 'I'm alone too.' There's a shift in the scale of power. A bridge is thrown between the two abysses.

For the good of all, I say: Be careful, the brutality of the world must not be more powerful or attractive than love and friendship.

It was neither German nor Jew who ruled the ghetto - it was illusion.

Even torture that is only verbal reinforce the power of the torturer: The prisoner's imagination leads him to dread the next round of interrogations. And when it happens, the feeling of inferiority becomes more acute; it bores into the brain, and the cultural and psychological defenses that surround the brain disintegrate and vanish. The ego is dissolved.

Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds.

Be careful in your relations with those in power; they draw you close or allow you to approach them only when they need you. They are your friends when your friendship is useful to them and affords them pleasure, but they forget you when you are in trouble. Elie Wiesel quoting Rabban Gamliel

He explained to me, with great emphasis, that every question possessed a power that was lost in the answer …

The individual is not a cog in a monstrous machine; it is within his power to modify the very laws which imprison him and the very relationship maintained by the Judge with the accused and witnesses. If it is true, as the Baal Shem says, that it is possible for man to hide the light of dawn emanating from the forest simply by shielding his eyes with his hands, still it is no less true that he can rediscover it by merely moving his hands.

He explained to me, with great emphasis, that every question possessed a power that was lost in the answer … Man

Je me souvenais de ce que mon vieux maître à la barbe jaunie m'avait dit un jour en m'expliquant le sixième commandement: pourquoi un homme n'aurait-il pas le droit de tuer? En tuant, expliquait-il, l'homme devient Dieu. Et nous n'avons pas le droit de le devenir trop facilement.

he slapped my father with such force that he fell down and then crawled back to his place on all fours. I stood petrified. What had happened to me? My father had just been struck, in front of me, and I had not even blinked. I had watched and kept silent. Only yesterday, I would have dug my nails into this criminal's flesh. Had I changed that much? So fast?