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Fear

37 Quotes on Power

What well-known people have said about power.

Power: Is it good or bad? See what these well-known people had to say about it.

(I should add that listing a quote here does not necessarily imply that I endorse or agree with the quote or the person who said it. Hopefully this will prevent future emails such as "OMG! I can't believe you added that quote from Cookie Monster!! Do you KNOW what Cookie Monster stands for?!?").

The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace. —Mahatma Gandhi

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. —Abraham Lincoln

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts. Perhaps the fear of a loss of power. —John Steinbeck

Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. —Paulo Freire

The measure of a man is what he does with power. —Plato

Silence is the ultimate weapon of power. —Charles de Gaulle

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

Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself. —Elie Weisel

For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit. —Noam Chomsky, Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post-9/11 World

The object of power is power. —George Orwell, 1984

We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. —George Orwell, 1984

Power-lust is a weed that grows only in the vacant lots of an abandoned mind. —Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Knowledge is power. —Francis Bacon

In order to obtain and hold power, a man must love it. —Leo Tolstoy

The steps of power are often steps on sand. —Edward Counsel, Maxims

Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. —Henry Kissinger

One of the things about powerful people is they have the ability to make it look easy. —Ice-T

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse. —Edmund Burke

With great power there must also come great responsibility! —Stan Lee

Absolute power was not meant for man. —William E. Channing, Thoughts

To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it: the pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary. —Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon

Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power. —Tao Te Ching

If you can abuse your power you have too much. —Marty Rubin

Do the thing and you will have the power. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true. —Honoré de Balzac

Power is a word the meaning of which we do not understand. —Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

And power without compassion is the worst kind of evil there is. —E.J. Patten, Return to Exile

Power lacks moral or principles. It only has interests. —Horacio Castellanos Moya

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. —Alice Walker

Calmness is the cradle of power. —J.G. Holland

The great secret of power is never to will to do more than you can accomplish. —Henrik Ibsen

You see what power is holding someone else's fear in your hand and showing it to them. —Amy Tan

Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't. —Margaret Thatcher

Power is when you have every justification to kill someone, and then you don’t. —Oskar Shindler

Don't trust children with edge tools. Don't trust man, great God, with more power than he has until he has learned to use that little better. What a hell we should make of the world if we could do what we would! —Ralph Waldo Emerson

Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power. —Seneca

O, it is excellent/To have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous/To use it like a giant. —William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act 2, Scene 2.

Copyright 2012 Sarkis Media LLC

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