Quotes About Power

The moment despair is alone, pure, sure of itself, pitiless in its consequences, it has a merciless power. Albert Camus

Nature wanted to show mankind, an irreverent, over-venturesome mankind, just how puny and pitifully helpless a thing mankind really is…

Man, alone, has the power to transform his thoughts into physical reality; man, alone, can dream and make his dreams come true." Napoleon Hill

Caesar described

Her mother had once told her that whoever cares the least has the greatest advantage.

She shook her head. "I won't go." His chuckle had absolutely no humor in it. "You say that as if you have a choice." "There is always a choice.

One and all, you have proclaimed Pittakos, the lowborn, to be tyrant of your lifeless and doomed land. Moreover, you deafen him with praise.

Hegel already knew this danger of history, of the historical human being, when he said that every German gymnasium professor teaches that Alexander the Great conquered the world because he had a pathological love of power. And the proof that the teacher does not have a pathological love of power is that he has not conquered the world.

Sycophancy toward those who hold power is a fact in every regime, and especially in a democracy, where, unlike tyranny, there is an accepted principle of legitimacy that breaks the inner will to resist.... Flattery of the people and incapacity to resist public opinion are the democratic vices, particularly among writers, artists, journalists and anyone else who is dependent on an audience.

Repugnance at the power of the people, at the fact that the popular taste should rule in all arenas of life, is very rare in a modern democracy. One of the intellectual charms of Marxism is that it explains the injustice or philistinism of the people in such a way as to exculpate the people, who are said to be manipulated by corrupt elites.

Sycophancy toward those who hold power is a fact in every regime, and especially in a democracy, where, unlike tyranny, there is an accepted principle of legitimacy that breaks the inner will to resist.

The Ancients subjected themselves to a fierce discipline of detachment from public opinion. Although they inevitably had to try to influence political life in their favor, they never seriously thought of themselves as founders or lawgivers. The mixture of unwise power and powerless wisdom, in the ancients view, would always end up with power strengthened and wisdom compromised. He who flirts with power, Socrates said, will be compelled to lie with it.

As a system, patriarchy encourages men to accept male privilege and perpetuate women's oppression, if only through silence.

Women's potential to disrupt patriarchy and make men vulnerable is why it's so easy for women to make men feel foolish or emasculated through the mildest humor that focuses on maleness and hints at women's power to stop going along with the status quo.

The more powerful a woman is under patriarchy, the more 'unsexed' she becomes in the eyes of others as her female cultural identity recedes beneath the mantle of male-identified power and the masculine images associated with it. With men the effect is just the opposite: the more powerful they are, the more aware they are of their manhood. In other words, in a patriarchal culture, power looks sexy on men but not on women.

No woman (or man) becomes a corporate manager, gets tenure at a university, or is elected to public office by showing their capacity for cooperation, sharing, emotional sensitivity, and nurturing.

He viewed her as a farmer views a prize cow: she was someone who would give him what he wanted – namely, a large family – and he demanded she respect his need for utter subservience in the relationship

Women are to be conquered, subdued, the way a mountaineer conquers a peak or a matador slays a bull.

refusal to abide by the rules of democracy

Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture.

Poetry is a principle of power invoked by all of us against our vanishing.

Love is a powerful force. It can heal wounds, bridge divides, and bring hope to the hopeless.

Southern women can say more with a cut of their eyes than a whole debate club's worth of speeches.

Music is one of the highest art forms there is. It can define a life, change a life, or even safe a life, in just three short minutes.