Power Quotes

We look forward to the time when the power to love of will replace the love of power. Then will our world know the blessings of peace. W E Gladstone

Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat. John Lehman (US Secretary of the Navy, 1981-1987)

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

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

Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never look to anything but power for their relief. Edmund Burke

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be. Thomas Jefferson

Power is the great aphrodisiac. Henry Kissinger

The more you are talked about, the less powerful you are. Benjamin Disraeli

And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that. All power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Lord Acton

The purpose of getting power is to be able to give it away. Aneurin Bevan

Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression. Malcolm X

Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who posses it; and this I know, my lords: that where laws end, tyranny begins. William Pitt the Elder

Once we have power we will never give it up! Heinrich Himmler

Power is something of which I am convinced there is no innocence this side of the womb. Nadine Gordimer

The need to exert power, when thwarted in the open fields of life, is the more likely to assert itself in trifles. Charles Horton Cooley

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Frederick Douglass

The power that is supported by force alone will have cause often to tremble. Louis Kossuth

Power? It’s like a Dead Sea fruit. When you achieve it, there is nothing there. Harold Macmillan

Every Communist must grasp the truth: ‘Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.’ Mao Zedong

Authority and power are two different things: power is the force by means of which you can oblige others to obey you. Authority is the right to direct and command, to be listened to or obeyed by others. Authority requests power. Power without authority is tyranny. Jacques Maritain

Power must never be trusted without a check. John Adams

The jaws of power are always opened to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing. John Adams

In order to obtain and hold power a man must love it. Thus the effort to get it is not likely to be coupled with goodness, but with the opposite qualities of pride, craft and cruelty. Leo Tolstoy

Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it. Milton Friedman

Power intoxicates men. It is never voluntarily surrendered. It must be taken from them. James F Byrnes

A friend in power is a friend lost. Henry Brooks Adams

Power is always gradually stealing away from the many to the few, because the few are more vigilant and consistent. Samuel Johnson

The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics. Bertrand Russell

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty. John Adams

Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but left to its own course it ends in power’s disappearance. Hannah Arendt

Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. Eric Hoffer

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

All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree. James Madison

Knowledge is the most democratic source of power. Alvin Toffler

The arts of power and its minions are the same in all countries and in all ages. It marks its victim; denounces it; and excites the public odium and the public hatred, to conceal its own abuses and encroachments. Henry Clay

In all our associations; in all our agreements let us never lose sight of this fundamental maxim – that all power was originally lodged in, and consequently is derived from, the people. George Mason

Power has to be insecure to be responsive. Ralph Nader

Power is what men seek and any group that gets it will abuse it. Lincoln Steffens

Power can be taken, but not given. The process of the taking is empowerment in itself. Gloria Steinem

Power in a corporation becomes residual and dwells in the background. It is the ability to exercise nice matters of judgement. Lord Chandos (Oliver Lyttelton)