Quotes About Power

Everything teaches transition, transference, metamorphosis: therein is human power, in transference, not in creation; & therein is human destiny, not in longevity but in removal. We dive & reappear in new places.

Nothing is so strong as gentleness nothing so gentle as real strength

There is no knowledge that is not power.

Things are in the saddle, And ride mankind.

Valor consists in the power of self-recovery, so that a man cannot have his flank turned, cannot be out-generalled, but put him where you will, he stands. This can only be by his preferring truth to his past apprehension of truth; and his alert acceptance of it, from whatever quarter; the intrepid conviction that his laws, his relations to society, his Christianity, his world may at any time be superseded and decease.

Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.

The law of nature is: Do the thing, and you shall have the power, but they who do not the thing have not the power.

That which befits us, embosomed in beauty and wonder as we are, is cheerfulness, and courage, and the endeavor to realize our aspirations. Shall not the heart which has received so much, trust the Power by which it lives? May it not quit other leadings, and listen to the Soul that has guided it so gently, and taught it so much, secure that the future will be worthy of the past?

Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right and a perfect contentment.

Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim.

Concentration is the secret of strength in politics, in war, in trade, in short in all management of human affairs

Don't trust children with edge tools. Don't trust man, great God, with more power than he has until he has learned to use that little better. What a hell we should make of the world if we could do what we would!

I am God in nature; I am a weed by the wall.

He who knows that power is inborn, that he is weak because he has looked for good out of him and elsewhere, and so perceiving, throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, instantly rights himself, stands in the erect position, commands his limbs, works miracles; just as a man who stands on his feet is stronger than a man who stands on his head.

The power of love, as the basis of a State, has never been tried.

Napoleon said of Massena, that he was not himself until the battle began to go against him; then, when the dead began to fall in ranks around him, awoke his powers of combination, and he put on terror and victory as a robe. So it is in rugged crises, in unweariable endurance, and in aims which put sympathy out of question, that the angel is shown.

Speech is power; speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel.

Do not think the youth has no force, because he cannot speak to you and me. Hark! in the next room his voice is sufficiently clear and emphatic. It seems he knows how to speak to his contemporaries. Bashful or bold then, he will know how to make us seniors very unnecessary.

The world -- this shadow of the soul, or other me, lies wide around. Its attractions are the keys which unlock my thoughts and make me acquainted with myself. I run eagerly into this resounding tumult...So much only of life as I know by experience...The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action past by, as a loss of power.

Conservatives and Progressives. These two parties, which divide our government—and every other government—have been fighting for control of the world from the very beginning. History is the chronicle of their battles: between nobles and commoners, rulers and rebels, old traditions and new ideas, the rich and the poor. As the world turns, one side gets the upper hand, then the other, and back again. Only the names change.

What's the use of an admirable form of government if political parties and moneyed interests control it? What's the use of our judicial system, if judges only quote precedents and ignore first principles? What's the use of a Supreme Court if it's swayed by the political winds of the hour?

Those who have ruled human destinies, like planets, for thousands of years, were not handsome men.

Spiritual force is stronger than material force; thoughts rule the world.

The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.