Quotes About Power

For you can always tell the gods by their appetite.

The French having passed from feudalism to monarchy, and from monarchy to a financial oligarchy, will easily pass from a financial oligarchy to anarchy.

Quanto aos romanos, não eram essencialmente militares, pois que fizeram conquistas vantajosas e duráveis, ao contrário dos verdadeiros militares, que tomam tudo e nada conservam, como os franceses.

Quando o serviço é obrigatório para todos, quando todos os cidadãos são soldados, ou foram, todas as forças sociais se acham dispostos de maneira a proteger o poder, ou até mesmo sua ausência, como se viu na França.

We must put our trust in Robespierre; he is incorruptible.

Mas se tocarem nos conselhos de guerra – exclamou o senhor de Terremondre –, será o fim do Exército, será o fim do país! Monsieur Bergeret formulou esta resposta: — Quando os padres e os grão-senhores foram privados do direito de enforcar os vilões, acreditou-se que era o fim de tudo. Mas, depressa, viu-se nascer uma nova ordem, superior à antiga. Falo em submeter o soldado, no tempo de paz, ao direito comum.

I am drawn mostly, insistently to the human voice. How powerful and necessary the solo voice, the experience of being someone, something else for a little while. This is and will remain literature's killer app, the thing most impervious to threat by everything that's not the word.

Uma palavra e tudo está salvo Uma palavra e tudo está perdido.

Et pourtant pour chacun la promesse de toute heure à venir contient tout le secret de la vie, en puissance de se révéler un jour occasionnellement dans un autre rêve.

Tragedy, in our times, is politics.

There is nothing with which it is so dangerous to take liberties as liberty itself.

Modern history, both early and late, was made by Europeans, who "built a world around Europe", as historians "know", according to Braudel. That is indeed the "knowledge" of the European historians who themselves "invented" history and then put it to good use. There is not even an inkling of suspicion that it may have been the other way around, that maybe it was the world that made Europe.

The world system wide reality is the competitive dog-eat-dog war of all against all (à la Hobbes), in which only the few can win and the many must lose. And so it has been for millennia, thanks to the world system's unequal structure and uneven process, which Wallerstein helps us identify.

The great mystery is not that we should have been thrown down here at random between the profusion of matter and that of the stars; it is that from our very prison we should draw, from our own selves, images powerful enough to deny our nothingness.

The most important quality in a leader is that of being acknowledged as such. All leaders whose fitness is questioned are clearly lacking in force.

Todo es tuyo. A todo tienes derecho y cóbralo caro.

Given all that lies beyond my control, I obsess about the few things I can control

Weak legs command, Gil says. Strong legs obey.

My father says he doesn't like hawks because they swoop down on mice and other defenseless desert creatures. He can't stand the thought of something strong preying on something weak.

This whole rotten mess came about just because he was able to think faster than the rest of us. And be sure that he didn't overlook the point of holding all the guns he could!

am înÈ›eles c? vraja se rupe tocmai pentru c? omul nu îndr?zneÈ™te s? vorbeasc? despre ea, nici s? cread? în ea.

Pensiamo di essere i padroni delle nostre vite, e non è vero. Le uniche cose che possiamo controllare sono marginali, rispetto al resto.

Men know everything - all of them - all the time - no matter how stupid or inexperienced or arrogant or ignorant they are.

You think intercourse is a private act it's not, it's a social act. Men are sexually predatory in life and women are sexually manipulative. When two individuals come together and leave their gender outside the bedroom door, then they make love.