Power Quotes

I repeat...that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people, and for the people all springs, and all must exist.
– Benjamin Disraeli
The conscience of a people is their power.
– John Dryden
I have found power in the mysteries of thought,
exaltation in the changing of the Muses;
I have been versed in the reasonings of men;
but Fate is stronger than anything I have known.
– Euripides
The secret of all power is - save your force. If you want high pressure you must choke off waste.
– Joseph Farrell
Let not thy will roar, when thy power can but whisper.
– Dr. Thomas Fuller
Be fit for more than the thing you are now doing. Let everyone know that you have a reserve in yourself; that you have more power than you are now using. If you are not too large for the place you occupy, you are too small for it.
– James A. Garfield
Far better to think historically, to remember the lessons of the past. Thus, far better to conceive of power as consisting in part of the knowledge of when not to use all the power you have. Far better to be one who knows that if you reserve the power not to use all your power, you will lead others far more successfully and well.
– A. Bartlett Giamatti
The sole advantage of power is that you can do more good.
– Baltasar Gracian
This art of resting the mind and the power of dismissing from it all care and worry is probably one of the secrets of energy in our great men.
– Captain J. A. Hadfield
Riches and power are but gifts of blind fate, whereas goodness is the result of one's own merits.
– Heloise
[The body is] a marvelous machine...a chemical laboratory, a power-house. Every movement, voluntary or involuntary, full of secrets and marvels!
– Theodor Herzl
Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.
– Eric Hoffer
It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable.
– Eric Hoffer
The great secret of power is never to will to do more than you can accomplish.
– Henrik Ibsen
An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.
– Thomas Jefferson
Where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power predominates, love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.
– Carl Gustav Jung
The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation’s greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us.
– John F. Kennedy
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 Francis Kennedy
All we actually have is our body and its muscles that allow us to be under our own power.
– Allegra Kent
Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.
– John Lehman
The joy of a spirit is the measure of its power.
– Ninon de Lenclos
The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it.
– Lord Macaulay
Dwelling on the negative simply contributes to its power.
– Shirley MacLaine
I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
– James Madison
By health I mean the power to live a full, adult, living, breathing life in close contact with... the earth and the wonders thereof - the sea - the sun.
– Katherine Mansfield
Irrigation of the land with seawater desalinated by fusion power is ancient. It's called 'rain'.
– Michael McClary
[S]tubbornness is also determination. It's simply a matter of shifting from won't power to will power.
– Peter McWilliams
The power of illustrative anecdotes often lies not in how well they present reality, but in how well they reflect the core beliefs of their audience.
– David P. Mikkelson
Glamour, that trans-human aura or power to attract imitation, is a kind of vessel into which dreams are poured, and some vessels are simply worthier than others... A beautiful woman can turn heads but real glamour has a deeper pull... Glamour [is] the power to rearrange people's emotions, which, in effect, is the power to control one's environment.
– Arthur Miller
Modern Man is the victim of the very instruments he values most. Every gain in power, every mastery of natural forces, every scientific addition to knowledge, has proved potentially dangerous, because it has not been accompanied by equal gains in self-understanding and self-discipline.
– Lewis Mumford
What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? All that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome.
– Friedrich Nietzsche
Real, constructive mental power lies in the creative thought that shapes your destiny, and your hour-by-hour mental conduct produces power for change in your life. Develop a train of thought on which to ride. The nobility of your life as well as your happiness depends upon the direction in which that train of thought is going.
– Laurence J. Peter
What power has law where only money rules.
– Gaius Petronius
No beast is more savage than man when possessed with power answerable to his rage.
– Plutarch
The trouble in corporate America is that too many people with too much power live in a box (their home), then travel the same road every day to another box (their office).
– Faith Popcorn
Anger without power is folly.
– German Proverb
The death-knell of the republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged in the hands of those who sought, not to do justice to all citizens, rich and poor alike, but to stand for one special class and for its interests as opposed to the interests of others.
– Theodore Roosevelt
To someone seeking power, the poorest man is the most useful.
– Sallust
Men do not care how nobly they live, but only how long, although it is within the reach of every man to live nobly, but within no man's power to live long.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
I was going to buy a copy of The Power of Positive Thinking, and then I thought: What the hell good would that do?
– Ronnie Shakes
The devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape.
– William Shakespeare
The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'T is mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's,
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.
– William Shakespeare
If absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure?
– Harry Shearer
There can never be a complete confidence in a power which is excessive.
– Cornelius Tacitus
You see what power is - holding someone else's fear in your hand and showing it to them!
– Amy Tan
Any fine morning, a power saw can fell a tree that took a thousand years to grow.
– Edwin Teale
In attempts to improve your character, know what is in your power and what is beyond it.
– Francis Thompson
The real power behind whatever success I have now was something I found within myself - something that's in all of us, I think, a little piece of God just waiting to be discovered.
– Tina Turner
Think of yourself as an incandescent power, illuminated and perhaps forever talked to by God and his messengers.
– Brenda Ueland
All power corrupts, but we need the electricity.
– Unknown
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
– Unknown
Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.
– Elie Wiesel
Power consists in one's capacity to link his will with the purpose of others, to lead by reason and a gift of cooperation.
– Woodrow Wilson
You can make those promises with just as much passion the second time around. Such is the regenerative power of the human heart.
– Marion Wink
Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its natural size.
– Virginia Woolf
Beauty is power like money is power like a gun is power.
– Chuck Palahniuk
Youth is the period in which a man can be hopeless. The end of every episode is the end of the world. But the power of hoping through everything, the knowledge that the soul survives its adventures, that great inspiration comes to the middle-aged.
– Gilbert K. Chesterton
Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.
– Anne Lamott
Young film makers should learn how to deal with the money and learn how to deal with the power structure. Because it is like a battle.
– Martin Scorsese
You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well.
– Lewis B. Smedes
You have no power at all if you do not exercise constant power.
– Major Owens
You can't win with some people. If you're not in government, you're criticised for being not serious. If you are in government, you're criticised for wanting power. That's the Labour party's line of attack, and it's a bit ridiculous.
– Vince Cable
You can change your world by changing your words... Remember, death and life are in the power of the tongue.
– Joel Osteen
You all know that I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces - my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope. These graces have carried me through difficult times and they have brought more joy to the good times than I ever could have imagined.
– Elizabeth Edwards
Words to me were magic. You could say a word and it could conjure up all kinds of images or feelings or a chilly sensation or whatever. It was amazing to me that words had this power.
– Amy Tan
Women with money and women in power are two uncomfortable ideas in our society.
– Candace Bushnell
Women have demanded and gotten better jobs and more power. But the one thing we deserve is a better relationship with ourselves.
– Ann Curry
Women have a lot of power in private life. There are many men who would say, 'Hey, women already rule my life.' But with women, more is more. The more there are, the more the world gets used to seeing them. We change the culture. We begin to expand options and lead and manage.
– Dee Dee Myers
Without education, we are weaker economically. Without economic power, we are weaker in terms of national security. No great military power has ever remained so without great economic power.
– Jon Meacham
With my new venture, Club Mom, we want to empower moms to feel their value and also build their collective power to make their lives better and easier. We want to bring them together as a community to share experiences and information.
– Andrew Shue
With a fourth generation of nuclear power, you can have a technology that will burn more than 99 percent of the energy in the fuel. It would mean that you don't need to mine uranium for the next thousand years.
– James Hansen
Whoever sets any bounds for the reconstructive power of the religious life over the social relations and institutions of men, to that extent denies the faith of the Master.
– Walter Rauschenbusch
Who would not give up wit for power and beauty?
– Mason Cooley
Where love rules, there is no will to power and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.
– Carl Jung
When you become famous, you start getting invites to parties where there are famous athletes and famous rock stars, politicians, people who have tremendous power and affluence. It's not in my DNA, but certainly I have been exposed to it.
– Billy Baldwin
When Whitney Houston died, I felt great sadness. My sadness, of course, was about our collective loss - when you listened to this nightingale sing, your body would drop into a chair, your head would tilt up, a small smile would creep across your face, and inside you knew that there was a higher power somewhere: gifted, beautiful, spiritual.
– James Belushi
When virtue and modesty enlighten her charms, the lustre of a beautiful woman is brighter than the stars of heaven, and the influence of her power it is in vain to resist.
– Akhenaton
When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy.
– Charles De Secondat
When state and religion are one, religion becomes a means for the powerful to remain in power.
– Walter Jon Williams
When it came to political power, blacks need not apply. Add to this steaming stew the growing tensions over the Vietnam War and the movement for civil rights, and you had plenty of elements to fire the imagination of a novice journalist.
– Andrea Mitchell
When I got to France I realized I didn't know very much about food at all. I'd never had a real cake. I'd had those cakes from cake mixes or the ones that have a lot of baking powder in them. A really good French cake doesn't have anything like that in it - it's all egg power.
– Julia Child
When I announced the development of Perl 6, I said it was going to be a community design. I designed Perl, myself. It's limited by my own brain power. So I wanted Perl 6 to be a community design.
– Larry Wall
When governments become large, voters cannot exercise close oversight, otherwise known as political power.
– Maggie Gallagher
When decisions on nuclear power stations and runways are delayed and the government dilly-dallies, people think they aren't important.
– James Dyson
What then is freedom? The power to live as one wishes.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
What the world needs is a small, compact, flexible fusion technology that could make electricity where and when it is needed. The existing fusion program is leading to a huge source of centralized power, at a price that nobody except a government can afford.
– Freeman Dyson
What the Lib Dems have failed to do is offer any meaningful agenda for government or for power.
– Lucy Powell
What is important, then, is not that the critic should possess a correct abstract definition of beauty for the intellect, but a certain kind of temperament, the power of being deeply moved by the presence of beautiful objects.
– Walter Pater
What I worry about would be that you essentially have two chambers, the House and the Senate, but you have simply, majoritarian, absolute power on either side. And that's just not what the founders intended.
– Barack Obama
What I fear most is power with impunity. I fear abuse of power, and the power to abuse.
– Isabel Allende
Well, the first thing is that truth and power for me form an antithesis, an antagonism, which will hardly ever be resolved. I can define in fact, can simplify the history of human society, the evolution of human society, as a contest between power and freedom.
– Wole Soyinka
Well, Jeff Buckley for me is one of the greatest singers I've ever heard. And the reason why is he has an amazing range, amazing emotional power in his voice. And the music he put around it also just had this passion and this soul to it and this spirit to it that very few artists have, and he passed at a very young age.
– John Legend
Well, I think indigenous peoples have ways of living on the Earth that they've had forever. And they've been overrun by organized religion, which has had a lot of money and power.
– Alice Walker
Well, first of all, I think that a lot of the voters who are voting for the tea party candidates have really good impulses. That is, they believe that for years and years and years, the people with wealth and power or government power have done well and ordinary people have not. That's true.
– William J. Clinton
We're learning how important it is both to preserve sibling relationships if they work and repair them if they're broken. We're also learning a lot about nonliteral siblings - stepsiblings, half-siblings - and the surprising power they can have.
– Jeffrey Kluger
We'll have a public power authority, which will also have the ability to build power or finance power. And more importantly, we'll have more power than our economy provides. All of that will give us leverage we don't have today.
– Gray Davis
We work hard on the show. We really believe in the show. It's an enormous privilege to work on a show that has the power to touch people's lives in such a positive way. The fan mail and the e-mail certainly reflect that.
– Roma Downey
We show deference to the civil authorities when they respect the divine origin of their power and when they serve the people with objective reference to the law of God.
– Angelo Scola
We must recognize that as the dominant power in the world we have a special responsibility. In addition to protecting our national interests, we must take the leadership in protecting the common interests of humanity.
– George Soros
We must believe in the power of education. We must respect just laws. We must love ourselves, our old and or young, our women as well as our men.
– Arthur Ashe