Motivational Quotes

Power

It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.

- David Brin

Best Quotes about Power

Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.

Colton, Charles Caleb

The Lord giveth and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord. [Job 1:21]

Bible

Power is every stealing from the many to the few.

Phillips, Wendell

A good indignation brings out all one's powers.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control; these three alone lead one to sovereign power.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an organized peace.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power.

Lao-Tzu

All the power that we exercise over others depends on the power we exercise over ourselves.

Cotvos

It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.

Macarthur, Douglas

10.

No emperor has the power to dictate to the heart.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

11.

Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.

Kissinger, Henry

12.

We have, I fear, confused power with greatness.

Stewart L. Udall

13.

The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both.

Havel, Vaclav

14.

Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society.

Foucault, Michel

15.

Authority founded on injustice is never of long duration.

Seneca

16.

By time and council do the best we can: The event is never in the power of man.

Herrich

17.

Happiness is secured through virtue; it is a good attained by man's own will.

Aquinas, St. Thomas

18.

Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.

Hoffer, Eric

19.

The will is deaf and hears no heedful friends.

Shakespeare, William

20.

Will it, and set to work briskly.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

21.

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.

Shaw, George Bernard

22.

Free will and determinism are like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you is determinism. The way you play your hand is free will.

Cousins, Norman

23.

Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play it is free will.

Nehru, Jawaharlal

24.

Power over a man's subsistence amounts to power over his will.

Hamilton, Alexander

25.

The ordinary man with extraordinary power is the chief danger for mankind -- not the fiend or the sadist.

Fromm, Erich

26.

The one who wills is the one who can.

Proverb

27.

A boy's will is the will of the wind.

Proverb, Norse

28.

Let them hate, so long as they fear.

Accius

29.

Power's footstool is opinion and his throne the human heart.

Vere, Sir Aubrey De

30.

No action will be considered blameless, unless the will was so, for by the will the act was dictated.

Seneca

31.

The exercise of power in this century has meant for all of us in the United States not arrogance, but agony.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

32.

The problem of power is how to achieve its responsible use rather than its irresponsible and indulgent use - of how to get men of power to live for the public rather than off the public.

Robert F. Kennedy

33.

Power intoxicates men. When a man is intoxicated by alcohol, he can recover, but when intoxicated by power, he seldom recovers.

Byrnes, James F.

34.

The king goes as far as he may, not as far as he could.

Proverb, Spanish

35.

Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.

Orwell, George

36.

Give me a lever long enough, and a prop strong enough, I can single-handed move the world.

Archimedes

37.

Voice of one, voice of none.

Proverb, Italian

38.

The secret to all power is to only do that which all would willingly do.

Kinkel

39.

The will is commendable though the ability may be wanting.