Power quotes
1.5K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside power — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Men should do their actual living and working in communities small enough to permit of genuine self-government and the assumption of personal responsibilities, federated into larger units in such a way that the temptation to abuse great power should not arise."
"There is an indefinable mysterious Power that pervades everything."
"Unless you choose to do great things with it, it makes no difference how much you are rewarded, or how much power you have."
"Though the power be wanting, yet the wish is praiseworthy."
"Love of power more frequently originates in vanity than pride (two qualities, by the way, which are often confounded) and is, consequently, yet more peculiarly the sin of little than of great minds."
"Because a thing is difficult for you, do not therefore suppose it to be beyond mortal power. On the contrary, if anything is possible and proper for man to do, assume that it must fall within your own capacity."
"Orators are most vehement when they have the weakest cause, as men get on horseback when they cannot walk."
"I shan't be pulling the levers there but I shall be a very good back-seat driver."
"You cannot have power for good without having power for evil too. Even mother's milk nourishes murderers as well as heroes."
"While Thee I seek, protecting Power, Be my vain wishes stilled; And may this consecrated hour With better hopes be filled."
"But the thing that I saw in your face no power can disinherit: No bomb that ever burst shatters the crystal spirit."
"Extensive powers not exercised as far as was necessary have, I believe, scarcely ever failed to ruin the possessor."
"Power is poison. Its effect on Presidents had always been tragic."
"In what does the objective measure of value lie? In the quantum of enhanced and organized power alone, in accordance with what occurs in all occurrence, a will to increase."
"Nothing in life possesses value except the degree of power--assuming that life itself is the will to power."
"The moment Germany rises as a great power, France gains a new importance as a cultural power."
"An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged; no harm can be done."
"In every power, of which taste is the foundation, excellence is pretty fairly divided between the sexes."
"What do you want to do with the [Communist] Party? A racing stable? What good is it to sharpen a knife every day if you never useit for slicing? A party is never more than a means. There is only one objective: power."
"Power is neither male nor female."
