Power Quotes

"It is energy - the central element of which is will - that produces the miracle that is enthusiasm in all ages. Everywhere it is what is called force of character and the sustaining power of all great action"

Samuel Smiles, Author

"Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes... can no longer be of concern to great powers alone"

John F. Kennedy, President

"When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses"

John F. Kennedy, President

"I look forward to a great future for America - a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose"

John F. Kennedy, President

"No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his power to be wicked. Goodness without that power is generally nothing more than sloth, or an impotence of will"

Francois de La Rochefoucauld, Writer

"It is not in the power of even the most crafty dissimulation to conceal love long, where it really is, nor to counterfeit it long where it is not"

Francois de La Rochefoucauld, Writer

"The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics"

Bertrand Russell, Philosopher

"Admiration of the proletariat, like that of dams, power stations, and aeroplanes, is part of the ideology of the machine age"

Bertrand Russell, Philosopher

"Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic"

Bertrand Russell, Philosopher

"Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power"

Bertrand Russell, Philosopher

"There is no such thing as a great talent without great will power"

Honore de Balzac, Novelist

"Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true"

Honore de Balzac, Novelist

"Power is action; the electoral principle is discussion. No political action is possible when discussion is permanently established"

Honore de Balzac, Novelist

"Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact"

Honore de Balzac, Novelist

"It is in this power of saying everything, and yet saying nothing too plainly, that the perfection of art consists"

John Ruskin, Writer

"The strength and power of a country depends absolutely on the quantity of good men and women in it"

John Ruskin, Writer

"The principle of all successful effort is to try to do not what is absolutely the best, but what is easily within our power, and suited for our temperament and condition"

John Ruskin, Writer

"The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don't mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do"

John Ruskin, Writer

"When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable"

Rene Descartes, Mathematician

"Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power"

Rene Descartes, Mathematician

"Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see"

Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher

"The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice"

Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher

"Sound character provides the power with which a person may ride the emergencies of life instead of being overwhelmed by them. Failure is... the highway to success"

Og Mandino, Author

"It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal"

Helen Keller, Author

"What we call Man's power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument"

C. S. Lewis, Author

"This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted"

C. S. Lewis, Author

"The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule"

Samuel Adams, Revolutionary

"You are never given a wish without being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however"

Richard Bach, Novelist

"You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. You may have to work for it, however"

Richard Bach, Novelist

"People demand freedom only when they have no power"

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poet

"Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country"

Vladimir Lenin, Leader

"Where there are large powers with little ambition... nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes"

Jonathan Swift, Writer

"The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit"

Jonathan Swift, Writer

"Power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent"

Jonathan Swift, Writer

"Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart"

Eric Hoffer, Writer

"The struggle for existence holds as much in the intellectual as in the physical world. A theory is a species of thinking, and its right to exist is coextensive with its power of resisting extinction by its rivals"

Thomas Huxley, Scientist

"It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak"

Eric Hoffer, Writer

"If forgers and malefactors are put to death by the secular power, there is much more reason for excommunicating and even putting to death one convicted of heresy"

Thomas Aquinas, Theologian

"I protest that if some great Power would agree to make me always think what is true and do what is right, on condition of being turned into a sort of clock and would up every morning before I got out of bed, I should instantly close with the offer"

Thomas Huxley, Scientist

"As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active power"

Thomas Aquinas, Theologian

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