Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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Power
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“When considering these matters, the dilemma inevitably arises - albeit only for a moment - that a shorter way to the Islamic order would be by taking power... This is mere temptation. History does not relate any true revolution which came from power. All began with education and meant in essence a moral summons.”
Alija Izetbegović (1925–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Systems don't change easily. Systems try to maintain themselves, and seek equilibrium. To change a system, you need to shake it up, disrupt the equilibrium. That often requires conflict. To me, conflict is a deeply spiritual place. It's the high-energy place where power meets power, where change and transformation can occur.”
“If we judge by wealth and power, our times are the best of times; if the times have made us willing to judge by wealth and power, they are the worst of times.”
Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Taste of the Age," The Saturday Evening Post (26 July 1958), p. 290
“Change comes from power, and power comes from organization. In order to act, people must get together.”
Saul Alinsky (1909–1972) said by 1972 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you don't give power to the words that people throw at you to hurt you, they don't hurt you anymore — and you actually have power over those people. … So, if you can, realize that the things that people say about you — they don't really matter — it's who you are. And the older you get, the more you'll understand that — because it gets better. And people get nicer too.”
Stephen Colbert (born 1964) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Stephen Colbert - It Gets Better (13 July 2011)
“The power to kill is less than the power to create, for it produces an ending rather than the beginning of something new.”
Audre Lorde (1934–1992) said by 1992 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So often, our Armed Forces and the Department of Defense staff are how the rest of the world encounters America. And you all know as well as anyone that our country is safer and stronger when we lead not just with the example of our power, but with the power of our example.”
“[Robert Mugabe] was a very clever bloke and he worked with me for as long as he thought it was going to help him. Once again, it was just to keep himself in power. I give that answer to all questions about Mugabe because that is all there is to it. Everything he has ever done is about keeping himself in power: Dictators and fascists all over the world think like that.”
Ian Smith (1919–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ian Smith, as quoted in Heidi Holland, Dinner with Mugabe, Penguin Books; Reprint edition (5 Feb 2009), .
“In painting, you have unlimited power. You have the ability to move mountains. You can bend rivers. But when I get home, the only thing I have power over is the garbage.”
Bob Ross (1942–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There must be an absolute, unlimited, and uncontroulable power lodged somewhere in every government; but to constitute monarchy, or the government of a single person, it is not necessary that this power should be lodged in the monarch alone.”
Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678–1751) said by 1751 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The French may improve their natural wealth and power by the improvement of trade and commerce. We can have no wealth, nor power by consequence, as Europe is now constituted, without the improvement of them, nor in any degree but proportionably to this improvement.”
Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678–1751) said by 1751 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whatever power may be necessary for the National Government a certain portion must necessarily be left in the States. It is impossible for one power to pervade the extreme parts of the U.S. so as to carry equal justice to them.”
George Mason (1725–1792) said by 1792 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All struggles Are essentially Power struggles. Who will rule, Who will lead, Who will define, refine, confine, design, Who will dominate. All struggles Are essentially Power struggles, And most are no more intellectual than two rams knocking their heads together.”
Octavia Butler (1947–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am not the leader of Libya, I am the leader of the Revolution, the revolution is part of the past and took place in 1969, Consequently. There's no need to talk about one will replace me. I do not have any power to delegate to my successor. The power lies with the people.”
Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Talk to Al-Jazeera (September 2009) Al-Jazeera
“When we speak of power, we mean man's control over the minds and actions of other men. By political power we refer to the mutual relations of control among the holders of public authority and between the latter and the people at large.”
Hans Morgenthau (1904–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 33 (1993 edition)
“Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose power a man is.”
James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For the creation of a masterwork of literature two powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment, and the man is not enough without the moment.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Critical power...tends to make an intellectual situation of which the creative power can profitably avail itself. It tends to establish an order of ideas, if not absolutely true, yet true by comparison with that which it displaces; to make the best ideas prevail.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Germany is the power in whose strength, prosperity, and vigorous government, Europe has the most vital interest, because she is the Power best able from her position to deal with Russia.”
John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) first seen 1877 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: ‘Home and Foreign Affairs’, The Fortnightly Review, No. CXXI. New Series (1 January 1877), p. 139
“The daimonic is any natural function which has the power to take over the whole person. Sex and eros, anger and rage, and the craving for power are examples. The daimonic can be either creative or destructive and is normally both.”
Rollo May (1909–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was not till the kings had been shorn of power and the interregnum of sham democracy had set in, leaving no virile force in the state or the world to resist the money power, that the opportunity for a world-wide plutocratic despotism arrived.”
Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) said by 1898 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You know, "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"? It's the same with powerlessness. Absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely. Einstein said everything had changed since the atom was split, except the way we think. We have to think anew.”
Studs Terkel (1912–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even snaky little Vyborg chatted happily with a few of the glowing-eyed young women that clustered about him, Eberly noted. Power goes to some people’s heads; in other people, power goes straight to the groin.”
Ben Bova (1932–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was clear to all there gathered that power is a dreadful thing, and that knowledge of power dims the seeing of the wise.”
Stephen R. Donaldson (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Power is power. Its uses are in the hands of the user.”
Stephen R. Donaldson (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility — the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.”
Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Baldwin was attacking the leading press barons of his day (Lord Beaverbrook and Lord Rothermere); the phrase was suggested by Baldwin's cousin Rudyard Kipling (17 March 1931), quoted in The Times (18 March 1931), p. 18.
“Men of power have not time to read; yet men who do not read are unfit for power”
Michael Foot (1913–2010) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Benjamin Disraeli, in his own book, 'Debts of Honour (1980)
“People say that knowledge is power. The more knowledge, the more power. Suppose you knew the winning numbers for the lottery? All of them? Not guessed them, not dreamed them, but really knew them? What would you do? You would run to the store. You would mark those numbers on the play card. And you would win...Same for killing people.”
“Liberal education was aristocratic in the sense that it was the education of those who enjoyed leisure and political power. If it was the right education for those who had leisure and political power, then it is the right education for everybody today.”
Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899–1977) said by 1977 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The horse carries the rider with power and speed. But the rider controls the horse. Talent carries the artist to great heights with power and speed. But the artist directs his talent. That is the element of 'consciousness', of 'calculation' in the work – or whatever else one chooses to call it.”
Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) said by 1944 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Lucifer was in Eden as a nice guy, probably for quite a while. Ezekiel tells us that Satan got proud; he was lifted up. He said, "I am a god." He was lifted up because of his wisdom, because of his riches, because of his beauty, and because of his power. The four things that still corrupt people today: wisdom, riches, beauty, and power.”
Kent Hovind (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At the 20th Congress of British Communist Party, Harry Pollitt, made [a] long report... Usual slogans spread about the building - 'Marxism is the science of working-class power'. Those present mostly lower middle class, few working class. On platform sat the Executive Committee, really deplorable faces. Unpleasant thought that in many parts of Europe, such people already in absolute power.”
Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) first seen 1981 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Like It Was: The Diaries of Malcolm Muggeridge (1981), p. 247
“Information is power. Disinformation is abuse of power.”
Newton Lee wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When an American thinks about the problem of government-building, he directs himself not to the creation of authority and the accumulation of power but rather to the limitation of authority and the division of power.”
Samuel P. Huntington (1927–2008) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Political Order in Changing Societies (1968), p. 7
“A realm of intimate, personal power is developing - power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested.”
Stewart Brand (born 1938) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Whole Earth Catalog (1968)
“Minds vary in sensitiveness and in self-power, as bodies do in susceptibility of attraction and repulsion. When, when shall we learn that they are governed by laws as inexorable as physical laws, and that a man can as easily refuse to obey what has power over him as a steel atom can resist the magnet?”
James Anthony Froude (1818–1894) said by 1894 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...the vital thing for the world to-day was to move away from the conception of the individual national State to something like a confederation of States in which some sovereign power was ceded to a wider Power. I do not think it need be much. At present what we have to give up is the right to make war.”
Clement Attlee (1883–1967) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Broadcast in Sydney (25 October 1959), quoted in The Times (26 October 1959), p. 9
“Integrative power [is] the ultimate power”
Kenneth Boulding (1910–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The most fundamental form of integrative power is the power of love.”
Kenneth Boulding (1910–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A history of Hitler has to be a history of his power — how he came to get it, what its character was, how he exercised it, why he was allowed to expand it to break all institutional barriers, why resistance to that power was so feeble. But these are questions to be directed at German society, not just at Hitler.”
Ian Kershaw (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When you have this sort of power, this responsibility, you can’t choose not to have it when the decisions become tough. You can’t afford to prevaricate or delegate; you have to be engaged. You can’t stay neutral; you can say you’re neutral, and try to act as though you are, but that neutrality will always help one side more than the other; that’s just the way power works...the leverage it exerts.”
Iain Banks (1954–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is an insane conceit. Power always drives to perpetuate itself, but this is a phenomenal extra distillation of idiocy. Only people already riddled with the internalised special pleading and self-importance that too much power brings could even start to imagine that this might be in any way sustainable.”
Iain Banks (1954–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Power breeds responsibilities, in international affairs as in domestic -- or even private. To dodge or disclaim these responsibilities is one form of the abuse of power.”
Irving Kristol (1920–2009) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: New York Times Magazine (May 12, 1968).
“One tool that is used most and has the greatest misuse of power is looks, and another tool that is used least and has the least desire for power is wisdom.”
Eugene J. Martin (1938–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband. And in like manner the husband also hath not power of his own body, but the wife.”
Paul of Tarsus (5–66) said by 66 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Philosophy is at once the power of alienated thought and the thought of alienated power, and as such it has never been able to emancipate itself from theology.”
Guy Debord (1931–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is nothing as energizing, as confidence-building, as sustaining as the power of love. How substantial is its influence on the human mind and heart! How great and magnificent is its power in overcoming fear and doubt, worry and discouragement!”
Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Standing for Something: Ten Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes, Times Books. . (2000).
“I am not afraid of death or of losing power. I am willing to give up power and my seat, but I'm not willing to give up Islam,…We shall be victorious.".”
Mohammed Omar (1960–2013) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Taleban warns U.S. of revenge, 15 September 2001
“The aim of Satanic power is to cut off communication with God. To accomplish this aim he deludes the soul with a sense of defeat, covers him with a thick cloud of darkness, depresses and oppresses the spirit, which in turn hinders prayer and leads to unbelief – thus destroying all power.”
James O. Fraser (1886–1938) first seen 1916 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 20 March 1916 Source: Geraldine Taylor. Behind the Ranges: The Life-changing Story of J.O. Fraser. Singapore: OMF International (IHQ) Ltd., 1998, 157.
“Power doesn't have to show off. Power is confident, self-assuring, self-starting and self-stopping, self-warming and self-justifying. When you have it, you know it.”
Ralph Ellison (1914–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source