Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,161,747 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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Power
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“In problem-posing education, people develop their power to perceive critically the way they existin the world with which and in which they find themselves; they come to see the world not as a static reality, but as a reality in process, in transformation.”
Paulo Freire (1921–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In a dynamic, rather than static, view of revolution, there is no absolute 'before' or 'after,' with the taking of power as the dividing line.”
Paulo Freire (1921–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As the oppressor minority subordinates and dominates the majority, it must divide it and keep it divided in order to remain in power.”
Paulo Freire (1921–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I interpret the revolutionary process as dialogical cultural action which is prolonged in 'cultural revolution' once power is taken. In both stages a serious and profound effort at conscientização—by means of which the people, through a true praxis, leave behind the status of objects to assume the status of historical Subjects—is necessary.”
Paulo Freire (1921–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Finally, cultural revolution develops the practice of permanent dialogue between leaders and people and consolidates the participation of the people in power.”
Paulo Freire (1921–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Men are defeated and dominated, though they do not know it; they fear freedom, though they believe themselves to be free. They follow general formulas and prescriptions as if by their own choice. They are directed; they do not direct themselves. Their creative power is impaired. They are objects, not Subjects.”
Paulo Freire (1921–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You remember what a fabulous success court-ordered "desegregation" plans have been. Few failures have been more spectacular. Illiterate students knifing one another between acts of sodomy in the stairwell is just one of the many eggs that had to be broken to make the left's omelette of transferring power from states to the federal government.”
Ann Coulter (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You don't want the Republicans in power, does that mean you want a dictatorship, gay boy?”
Ann Coulter (born 1961) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In response to a student's question: "You don't want the Democrats in power, so does that mean you want a dictatorship?"; after her address "Liberals Are Wrong About Everything" at Indiana University (February 23, 2006).
“There must be an end to white monopoly on political power, and a fundamental restructuring of our political and economic systems to ensure that the inequalities of apartheid are addressed and our society thoroughly democratized.”
Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Gandhian influence dominated freedom struggles on the African continent right up to the 1960s because of the power it generated and the unity it forged among the apparently powerless. Nonviolence was the official stance of all major African coalitions, and the South African A.N.C. remained implacably opposed to violence for most of its existence.”
Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You will notice that France, Germany, Russia, China are against this decision. It is clearly a decision that is motivated by George W. Bush's desire to please the arms and oil industries in the United States of America. If you look at those factors, you'll see that an individual like myself, a man who has lost power and influence, can never be a suitable mediator.”
Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Power dements even more than it corrupts, lowering the guard of foresight and raising the haste of action.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) first seen 1792 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. IV : The Convention: September 21, 1792 - October 26, 1795, Part V : The Reign of Terror: September 17, 1793 - July 28, 1794, § 4 : The Revolution Eats Its Children
“Here is a fulfillment of long centuries of civilization and culture; here, in romantic love, more than the triumph of thought or the victories of power is the topmost reach of human beings.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The good of the people must be the great purpose of government. By the laws of nature and of reason, the governors are invested with power to that end. And the greatest good of the people is liberty. It is to the state what health is to the individual.”
Denis Diderot (1713–1784) said by 1784 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To a right-winger, unions are awful. Why do right-wingers hate unions? Because collective bargaining is the power that a worker has against the corporation. Right-wingers hate that.”
Janeane Garofalo (born 1964) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Majority Report, June 3, 2005 broadcast
“Lack of leadership and direction in the state has let the one group get control who always gain power in a nation's time of weakness—the Jews.”
Philip Johnson (1906–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Social Justice (late 1930s), as cited in Nikil Saval "Philip Johnson, the Man Who Made Architecture Amoral", The New Yorker (December 12, 2018)
“I thought that my invincible power would hold the world captive, leaving me in a freedom undisturbed. Thus night and day I worked at the chain with huge fires and cruel hard strokes. When at last the work was done and the links were complete and unbreakable, I found that it held me in its grip.”
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) said by 1941 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When sorrow is deepest...then the surface crust is pierced, and consolation wells up, and all the forces of patience and courage are banded together to do their duty. Thus great suffering brings with it the power of great endurance. So while we are cowards before petty troubles, great sorrows make us brave by rousing our truer manhood.”
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) said by 1941 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The development of intelligence and physical power is equally necessary in animals and men for their purposes of living; but what is unique in man is the development of his consciousness which gradually deepens and widens the realization of his immortal being, the perfect, the eternal.”
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) said by 1941 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In India, the measure of a singer's freedom is in his own creative personality. He can sing the composer's song as his own, if he has the power creatively to assert himself in his interpretation of the general law of the melody which he is given to interpret.”
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) said by 1941 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nature has mysterious infinities and imaginative power. It is always varying the productions it offers to us. The artist himself is one of nature's means.”
Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 39: 'Huysmans and Redon', (written in 1889, published 1953)
“Everything new endangers something old. A new machine replaces human hands; a new source of power threatens old businesses; a new trade route wipes out the supremacy of old ports and brings prosperity to new ones. This is the price that must be paid for progress and it is worth it.”
Hyman G. Rickover (1900–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The human brain became large by natural selection (who knows why, but presumably for good cause). Yet surely most “things” now done by our brains, and essential both to our cultures and to our very survival, are epiphenomena of the computing power of this machine, not genetically grounded Darwinian entities created specifically by natural selection for their current function.”
Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) said by 2002 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The true beauty of nature is her amplitude; she exists neither for nor because of us, and possesses a staying power that all our nuclear arsenals cannot threaten (much as we can easily destroy our puny selves).”
Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) said by 2002 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Memory is a fascinating trickster. Words and images have enormous power and can easily displace actual experience over the years.”
Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) said by 2002 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The real tragedy of human existence is not that we are nasty by nature, but that a cruel structural asymmetry grants to rare events of meanness such power to shape our history.”
Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) said by 2002 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The intelligible forms of ancient poets, The fair humanities of old religion, The power, the beauty, and the majesty That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain, Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring, Or chasms and watery depths, — all these have vanished; They live no longer in the faith of reason.”
Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) said by 1805 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“Who dares impede my progress? Who presume The spirit to control which guideth me? Still must the arrow wing its destined flight! Where danger is, there must Johanna be; Nor now, nor here, am I foredoomed to fall; Our monarch's royal brow I first must see Invested with the round of sovereignty. No hostile power can rob me of my life, Till I've accomplished the commands of God.”
Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) said by 1805 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fortune, which had never forsaken him in his lifetime, favored the King of Sweden even in his death, with the rare privilege of falling in the fullness of his glory and an untarnished fame. By a timely death, his protecting genius rescued him from the inevitable fate of man - that of forgetting moderation in the intoxication of success, and justice in the plenitude of power.”
Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) said by 1805 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In circumstances where the law of force prevails, where security depends on power alone, the weakest party is naturally the most busy to place itself in a posture of defense.”
Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) said by 1805 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anything big and strange always upsets the people in power.”
Robert Silverberg (born 1935) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think power is a sickness and governing is a folly for madmen.”
Robert Silverberg (born 1935) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Barjazid does not yet rule as an absolute tyrant, for that might turn the people against him, and he is still insecure in his power—while you live. But he rules for himself and for his family, not for Majipoor. He lacks a sense of right, and does only what seems useful and expedient. As his confidence grows, so too will his crimes, until Majipoor groans under the whip of a monster.”
Robert Silverberg (born 1935) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They were apt to be disappointed with the way he fulfilled his promises to them, for he intended, if he could, to sweep both the bickering rivals from power. But he did not ask pure and total saintliness of himself in his dealings with those whose chief role in the government appeared to be to impede and obstruct.”
Robert Silverberg (born 1935) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As the base rhetorician uses language to increase his own power, to produce converts to his own cause, and to create loyal followers of his own person—so the noble rhetorician uses language to wean men away from their inclination to depend on authority, to encourage them to think and speak clearly, and to teach them to be their own masters.”
Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By 'socialism' I mean a classless society in which the State has disappeared, production is cooperative, and no man has political or economic power over another. The touchstone would be the extent to which each individual could develop his own talents and personality.”
Dwight Macdonald (1906–1982) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Root is Man" (1946).
“We have never yet had a Labour Government that knew what taking power really means; they always act like second-class citizens.”
Dora Russell (1894–1986) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Observer (30 January 1983)
“We believe that the very beginning and end of salvation, and the sum of Christianity, consists of faith in Christ, who by His blood alone, and not by any works of ours, has put away sin, and destroyed the power of death.”
Martin Luther (1483–1546) said by 1546 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let us keep to Christ, and cling to Him, and hang on Him, so that no power can remove us.”
Martin Luther (1483–1546) said by 1546 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is quite impossible for me or any other man to command a British Army under the existing system. We have in the service the scum of the earth as common soldiers; and of late years we have been doing everything in our power, both by law and by publications, to relax the discipline by which alone such men can be kept in order.”
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852) first seen 1813 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: What Wellington Said", Adventures In Historyland (2 July 1813)
“If anyone wishes to know the history of this war, I will tell them that it is our maritime superiority gives me the power of maintaining my army while the enemy are unable to do so.”
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852) first seen 1813 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks to Thomas Byam Martin (September 1813), quoted in Letters and Papers of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Thos. Byam Martin G.C.B. Vol. II, ed. Richard Vessey Hamilton (1898), p. 409
“After many years of working with and listening to American adolescents, I don't believe they are ready for sex or its potential consequences – parenthood, abortion, sexually transmitted diseases – and I think we need to do everything in our power to discourage sexual activity and encourage abstinence.”
Hillary Clinton (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our Founders fought a revolution and wrote a Constitution so America would never be a nation where one person had all the power. Two hundred and forty years later, we still put our faith in each other.”
Hillary Clinton (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“America's strength doesn't come from lashing out. Strength relies on smarts, judgment, cool resolve, and the precise and strategic application of power.”
Hillary Clinton (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A big part of our plan will be unleashing the power of the private sector to create more jobs at higher pay. And that means for us, creating an infrastructure bank to get private funds off the sidelines and complement our private investments.”
Hillary Clinton (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We can have enough clean energy to power every home.”
Hillary Clinton (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As the history majors among you here today know all too well, when people in power invent their own facts and attack those who question them, it can mark the beginning of the end of a free society. That is not hyperbole. It is what authoritarian regimes throughout history have done. They attempt to control reality. Not just our laws and our rights and our budgets, but our thoughts and beliefs.”
Hillary Clinton (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She hadn’t been such a bad girl before the power went to her head.”
Joe Haldeman (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beauty is power and elegance, right action, form fitting function, intelligence, and reasonability. And very often,” he grinned and pushed at her belly, “expressed in curves.”
Kim Stanley Robinson (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Power is like matter, it has gravity, it clumps and then starts to draw more into itself.”
Kim Stanley Robinson (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source