Power Quotes

"The continuation of authority has frequently proved the undoing of democratic governments. Repeated elections are essential to the system of popular governments, because there is nothing so dangerous as to suffer power to be vested for a long time in one citizen. The people become accustomed to obeying him, and he becomes accustomed to commanding, hence the origin of usurpation and tyranny"

Simon Bolivar, Leader

"Let the entire system of government be strengthened, and let the balance of power be drawn up in such a manner that it will be permanent and incapable of decay because of its own tenuity"

Simon Bolivar, Leader

"So that the failures to pass a civil rights bill isn't because of Black Power, isn't because of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; it's not because of the rebellions that are occurring in the major cities"

Stokely Carmichael, Activist

"We need to break our dependency on foreign sources of oil, which leaves us at the mercy of foreign powers. To do that, we should increase domestic energy production"

Bobby Jindal, Politician

"If you can do that - if you run, hit, run the bases, hit with power, field, throw and do all other things that are part of the game - then you're a good ballplayer"

Willie Mays, Athlete

"Music makes us want to live. You don't know how many times people have told me that they'd been down and depressed and just wanted to die. But then a special song caught their ear and that helped give them renewed strength. That's the power music has"

Mary J. Blige, Musician

"An organization which claims to be working for the needs of a community - as SNCC does - must work to provide that community with a position of strength from which to make its voice heard. This is the significance of black power beyond the slogan"

Stokely Carmichael, Activist

"There is great treasure there behind our skull and this is true about all of us. This little treasure has great, great powers, and I would say we only have learnt a very, very small part of what it can do"

Isaac Bashevis Singer, Novelist

"Black power can be clearly defined for those who do not attach the fears of white America to their questions about it"

Stokely Carmichael, Activist

"Nature is at work. Character and destiny are her handiwork. She gives us love and hate, jealousy and reverence. All that is ours is the power to choose which impulse we shall follow"

David Seabury, Psychologist

"India, in particular, is looking to develop nuclear power for domestic, commercial use, and we should work with them. This is a good deal for both countries"

Bobby Jindal, Politician

"The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws"

Ayn Rand, Writer

"The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever"

James A. Baldwin, Author

"The right of nature... is the liberty each man hath to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life"

Thomas Hobbes, Philosopher

"It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have"

James A. Baldwin, Author

"God... a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive"

Ayn Rand, Writer

"Words derive their power from the original word"

Meister Eckhart, Philosopher

"The obligation of subjects to the sovereign is understood to last as long, and no longer, than the power lasteth by which he is able to protect them"

Thomas Hobbes, Philosopher

"The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions"

James A. Baldwin, Author

"A tool is usually more simple than a machine; it is generally used with the hand, whilst a machine is frequently moved by animal or steam power"

Charles Babbage, Mathematician

"Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind"

Marcel Proust, Author

"The educator must believe in the potential power of his pupil, and he must employ all his art in seeking to bring his pupil to experience this power"

Alfred Adler, Psychologist

"To achieve, you need thought. You have to know what you are doing and that's real power"

Ayn Rand, Writer

"Every one, more or less, loves Power, yet those who most wish for it are seldom the fittest to be trusted with it"

Samuel Richardson, Novelist

"During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man"

Thomas Hobbes, Philosopher

"Ambition is the immoderate desire for power"

Baruch Spinoza, Philosopher

"No nation as young as America can be expected to become immediately a power in the arts"

John Philip Sousa, Musician

"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, President

"In constant pursuit of money to finance campaigns, the political system is simply unable to function. Its deliberative powers are paralyzed"

John Rawls, Educator

"We'll never solve the feminization of power until we solve the masculinity of wealth"

Gloria Steinem, Activist

"The media is comparable to government-probably passes government in raw power"

Matt Drudge, Journalist

"We have entered an era vibrating with the din of small voices. Every citizen can be a reporter, can take on the powers that be"

Matt Drudge, Journalist

"Law without education is a dead letter. With education the needed law follows without effort and, of course, with power to execute itself; indeed, it seems to execute itself"

Rutherford B. Hayes, President

"The worst pain a man can suffer: to have insight into much and power over nothing"

Herodotus, Historian

"Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression"

Malcolm X, Activist

"Power never takes a back step only in the face of more power"

Malcolm X, Activist

"Master of the universe but not of myself, I am the only rebel against my absolute power"

Pierre Corneille, Dramatist

"We are in a period when old questions are settled and the new are not yet brought forward. Extreme party action, if continued in such a time, would ruin the party. Moderation is its only chance. The party out of power gains by all partisan conduct of those in power"

Rutherford B. Hayes, President

"Because primarily of the power of the Internet, people of modest means can band together and amass vast sums of money that can change the world for some public good if they all agree"

William J. Clinton, President

"To give aid to every poor man is far beyond the reach and power of every man. Care of the poor is incumbent on society as a whole"

Baruch Spinoza, Philosopher

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