Famous quotes
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Power
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“That’s how Power Systems work. They set up divisions between us. One of the most powerful things is reclaiming that connection”
Pregs Govender (born 1960) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In Conversation with anti-apartheid activist Pregs Govender,7 August 2022,by Yewande Omotoso
“London is where powerful people are, on the whole. The best-paid jobs are here, the best-paid egos. London is the capital of power and egos — therefore it's the capital of office affairs as well.”
Lucy Kellaway (born 1959) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From an interview, as cited in "Internal affairs: Lucy Kellaway on her illicit sex novel", Evening Standard (10 April 2012).
“What could you do... if you took particle accelerators, and you made them really powerful... [T]his is something that I work on, is taking proton accelerators of relatively low energy, but putting more and more particles in, and getting a really high beam power...”
Suzie Sheehy (born 1984) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So, the Igbo believe in a very egalitarian system where no one is superior to the other but it is leadership in the group. So, where women express power in Igbolandis in the group, Otu Umu Ada. They are the group of daughters and one of the strongest and powerful groups of women and it is a political organisation.”
Nwando Achebe (born 1970) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In our democracy, the Indian community has always held a sway vote that every party has been clamouring for. They know that the Indian community has that power, any which way, and they can become powerful if they get the Indian vote bank.”
Shameen Thakur-Rajbansi (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People who seek power over others are the weakest people on Earth. That means Washington is populated not by powerful movers and shakers, but by neurotic weaklings.”
Mark Pellegrino (born 1965) first seen 2025 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 10. Washington is populated by neurotic weaklings, YouTube (January 18th, 2025)
“I was later told who did it. To this day, they don’t know I know. There is power in that. It is powerful to know something and just keep it with you until you decide to act on it. It’s like having bullets – if you use them, then they are gone. But if you keep them safely, you have an arsenal. I sometimes see the person who did it and they think we are cool but I know. One day.”
“(About Tommaso Besozzi) He is both a reporter and a historian. He uncovers the invisible threads of mafia power, the conveniences that drive the island's powerful forces to use the bandit as their executioner, commissioning him to carry out the Portella della Ginestra massacre on 1 May 1947.”
Ferruccio De Bortoli (born 1953) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: È insieme cronista e storico. Scopre i fili invisibili del potere mafioso, le convenienze che spingono i poteri forti dell'isola a servirsi del bandito giustiziere, a commissionargli la strage di Portella della Ginestra…
“Yahweh is comparable to the powerful boss of a mafia clan who spreads fear through threats, violence and murder in order to gain power, control and respect. Of what value are worship and obedience out of fear? Taking pleasure in this kind of devotion is typical of dictators.”
Paulo Bittencourt (1892–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Silence is the primal ground. In silence there is the greatest agency, ultimate power. In silence, everything occurs. … Silence underlies all of these things, and this is why it is the most powerful of all.”
Madhukar (1914–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But then I realised, how will they know the truth if you do not bring them closer to the truth? And the God that we serve is above everyone else. The God that we serve is more powerful than any other power on earth.”
Benjamin Dube (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We must make use of every minute, value every unit of our material power and pool the wisdom and talent of all so that we can accentuate both our visible national defense combat capability and our invisible political, social and cultural vitality, and combine these into a powerful, compact and undivided force.”
Chiang Ching-kuo (1910–1988) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Inauguration of President Chiang Ching-kuo" in Taiwan Today (1 June 1978)
“When I’m in a dress, I feel the most powerful and enlightened version of myself. There is definitely a power in wearing a dress and a vulnerability, that I love.”
“Self-belief, determination, drives and zeal defines a powerful person to me. Power starts with believing in yourself and it has nothing to do with wealth or politics.”
Joram Muzira (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Transparency helps ensure that power is not abused or used to make the powerful, or their immediate families, rich. There is also a genuine public interest in ensuring that the people who make laws and levy tax are following those laws and paying their fair share of tax.”
Heather Brooke (attributed) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Secrecy, in the hands of the powerful, is too easy a tool to abuse. The distance from protection to cover-up is short, and a tool initially intended to help can quickly morph into causing harm. That’s why it should never be a default for anyone in power, but rather an exception.”
Heather Brooke (attributed) first seen 2025 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: I’ve fought the secret state for decades. Afghan scandal is no surprise" The Times (20 July 2025).
“Father of Peace, and God of love! We own Thy power to save, That power by which our Shepherd rose Victorious o'er the grave.”
Philip Doddridge (1702–1751) said by 1751 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Published in 1755, Hymns: "Father of Peace", Chambers Dictionary of Quotations, p. 278.
“I find that whenever I am in power, or my father was in power, somehow good things happen. The economy picks up, we have good rains, water comes, people have crops. I think the reason this happens is that we want to give love and we receive love.”
Benazir Bhutto (1953–2007) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "I never asked for power" in The Guardian (15 August 2002)
“Power is what spoils people. Yes, it seems to me that the seeking after power is the great danger and the great corruptor of mankind.”
Baldur von Schirach (1907–1974) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To Leon Goldensohn, June 16, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004 - Page 245
“Seek within. All power dwells in you, infinite power for good. Realise your real nature and be perennially happy and peaceful.”
Swami Sivananda (1887–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Genius is supposed to be a power of producing excellencies, which are out of the reach of the rules of art; a power which no precepts can teach, and which no industry can acquire.”
Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) said by 1792 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is always difficult to represent the place that power actually holds in the workings of politics and in the processes of history. Some men seem ready to speak as though power did not exist (because in their view it ought not to exist); and if others are emphatic about the reality of its presence they are assumed to be in favour of force, merely because they recognise its operation in the world.”
Herbert Butterfield (1900–1979) said by 1979 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us: power over our sleep, our appetites, our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness.”
Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As to the power which money gives, it is that of brute force, it is the power of the bludgeon and the bayonet, and of the bribed press, tongue and pen.”
William Cobbett (1763–1835) said by 1835 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The trusts will not allow you to vote them out of power because they are the power, as is shown by the interview given above.”
Lucy Parsons (1851–1942) first seen 1905 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Wage Slaves vs Corporations" (1905)
“Work, and thou wilt bless the day Ere the toil be done; They that work not, can not pray, Can not feel the sun. God is living, working still, All things work and move; Work, or lose the power to will, Lose the power to love.”
John Sullivan Dwight (1813–1893) said by 1893 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As an exercise of raw judicial power, the Court perhaps has authority to do what it does today; but, in my view, its judgment is an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review that the Constitution extends to this Court.”
Byron White (1917–2002) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dissenting from the decision of the US Supreme Court in Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 at 222 (1973); also applied to Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
“Love is God’s essence; Power but his attribute: therefore is his love greater than his power.”
Richard Garnett (1835–1906) said by 1906 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Chernobyl scarred Navalny like Voldemort scarred Harry Potter, the scar so deep he could never root it out. From the age of ten, Navalny saw how a state that lied to its people was a thing of evil, that, in politics, in power, you must tell the truth to people. After seeing what moronic, lying power did to his childhood idyll, he spent the rest of his life not lying to people.”
John Sweeney (journalist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Names have a mysterious transforming power. Like a ring on a finger, a name may at first seem merely accidental, committing you to nothing; but before you realize its magical power, it's gotten under your skin, become part of you and your destiny.”
Stefan Zweig (1881–1942) said by 1942 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is the natural desire of each nation to use the other as an instrument of its own purposes and policies. By dint of our mutual dependence, your influence is amplified by our power. Our power is made more responsible and more effective by your influence.”
Kingman Brewster Jr. (1919–1988) first seen 1988 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On relations between the US and the UK, as quoted in "Kingman Brewster Jr., 69, Ex-Yale President and U.S. Envoy, Dies" in The New York Times (9 November 1988)
“Am I a free agent, or am I merely the manifestation of a foreign power? Neither appear sufficiently well founded.By the most courageous resolve of my life am I reduced to this! what Power can save me from it, from myself?”
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) said by 1814 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 24
“In the end, what is really needed is a fundamental rethinking of the notion that the state rather than private markets must monopolize the provision of justice and security. This is the fatal conceit. No power granted to the state goes unabused. This power, among all possible powers, might be the most important one to take away from the state.”
Lew Rockwell (born 1944) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "The Police State Abolishes the Trial", (30 September 2011), Mises Daily, The Ludwig von Mises Institute.
“What is one flesh from another? So I tried it again, just to be sure of myself. It was the first step to power, you understand. Power in its purest sense. The end of inhibitions. The conquest of weakness of your too human flesh with all its sentiment.”
Wole Soyinka (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the end I began to understand. There is such a thing as absolute power over narrative. Those who secure this privilege for themselves can arrange stories about others pretty much where, and as, they like. Just as in corrupt, totalitarian regimes, those who exercise power over others can do anything.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the end I began to understand. There is such a thing as absolute power over narrative. Those who secure this privilege for themselves can arrange stories about others pretty much where, and as, they like. Just as in corrupt, totalitarian regimes, those who exercise power over others can do anything. They can bring out crowds of demonstrators whenever they need them.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ralph had lost real power by trying to gain the appearance of power. He was a leader. But he was following a program for leaders ; therefore, he was a follower... he was, as he put it, a high-level mediocre.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So while in men’s magazines success is a power tool to get sex and love, and therefore the look of success is crucial, in women’s magazines love and sex are power tools to get success—and therefore both the look of love and the sexual tease/promise are crucial.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When women are at the height of their beauty power and exercise it, we call it marriage. When men are at the height of their success power and exercise it, we call it a mid-life crisis.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Male makeup is men’s titles, status and paying for dates. Makeup is what both sexes use to bridge the gap between the power they have and the power they’d like to have. Both male and female makeup are compensations for feelings of powerlessness.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Men will not change as long as women ‘marry up.’ Men won't change until we have a perspective on how powerless power makes us. A woman cannot help a man change until she has a perspective on how powerless power makes men.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If power means having control over one's own life, then perhaps there is no better ranking of the impact of sex roles and racism on power over our own lives than life expectancy.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even if your son tries to use his power to save a woman, if he fails, that power will implode.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My God commands, whose power no power resists.”
Robert Greene (dramatist) first seen 1590 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Looking-Glass for London (c. 1590)
“Art is the most valued thing in the world...it is the expression of the highest form of human energy,the creative power nearest to the divine.The power is within - the question is how to reach it.”
Arthur Wesley Dow (1857–1922) said by 1922 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Arthur Wesley Dow & American Arts & Crafts, Nancy E Green & Jessica Poesch Exhibt Cat. New York (1999)
“God and the people are the source of all power. I have twice been given the power. I have taken it, and damn it, I will keep it forever.”
François Duvalier (1907–1971) said by 1971 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Elizabeth Abbott, Haiti: An insider's history of the rise and fall of the Duvaliers (1988), p. 112.
“This law will be proven, first, for the case where only black bodies are compared with each other, that is, those whose absorptic power = 1; i.e., it will be shown that the radiating power of all black bodies is the same at the same temperature.”
Gustav Kirchhoff (1824–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The power of the people and the power of reason are one.”
Georg Büchner (1813–1837) said by 1837 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And the reason the federal government wasn’t given that power [to create paper money or issue bills of credit] was because the framers didn’t want it to have the power to create inflation. They had just experienced it firsthand with the Continental dollar, which ended up being worth around 10 cents and gave rise to the expression “not worth a Continental.”
Peter Schiff (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You make it sound like having the power to change the world is a bad thing.” “Bad? No. Abhorrent, depressing, ghastly. Having power is a terrible burden, the worst thing imaginable, except for every other alternative.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source