Power Quotes

“I would make this war as severe as possible and show no symptoms of tiring till the South begs for mercy.”

— William Tecumseh Sherman

“When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die.”

— Jean-Paul Sartre

“If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting.”

— Curtis LeMay

“It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep may be.”

— Virgil

“When all the world is overcharged with inhabitants, then the last remedy of all is war, which provideth for every man by victory or death.”

— Thomas Hobbes

“You will kill 10 of our men and we will kill 1 of yours, and in the end it will be you who tire of it.”

— Ho Chi Minh

“Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts, perhaps the fear of a loss of power.”

— John Steinbeck

“If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall; we see further into the future.”

— Madeleine Albright

“The atom bomb is a paper tiger which the United States reactionaries use to scare people. It looks terrible, but in fact it isn't.”

— Mao Zedong

“An alliance with a powerful person is never safe.”

— Phaedrus

“You can change your world by changing your words. Remember, death and life are in the power of the tongue.”

— Joel Osteen

“You are always bigger than the problem; the problem can never be bigger than you.”

— Katie Piper

“The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos. The winner will be the one who controls that chaos, both his own and the enemy's.”

— Napoleon Bonaparte

“Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self-interest.”

— Napoleon Bonaparte

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”

— Archimedes

“There are only two forces in the world: the sword and the spirit. In the long run, the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.”

— Napoleon Bonaparte

“Nothing else in the world, not all the armies, is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.”

— Victor Hugo

“Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel.”

— Che Guevara

“Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.”

— Voltaire

“The power of imagination makes us infinite.”

— John Muir

“I came, I saw, God conquered.”

— Charles V

“In a rich man's house, there is no place to spit but his face.”

— Diogenes

“While the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser.”

— Karl Marx

“Nothing gives a fearful man more courage than another's fear.”

— Umberto Eco

“He was the sort of person who stood on mountaintops during thunderstorms in wet copper armour shouting 'All the gods are bastards.'”

— Terry Pratchett

“What do I care about law? Ain't I got the power?”

— Cornelius Vanderbilt

“You cannot make a revolution with silk gloves.”

— Joseph Stalin

“Peace is obtained by war.”

— Cornelius Nepos

“All warfare is based on deception.”

— Sun Tzu

“The conventional army loses if it does not win; the guerrilla wins if he does not lose.”

— Henry Kissinger

“War is an act of violence whose object is to constrain the enemy to accomplish our will.”

— George Washington

“If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce.”

— Winston Churchill

“Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.”

— Winston Churchill

“War is the business of barbarians.”

— Napoleon Bonaparte

“All reactionaries are paper tigers.”

— Mao Zedong

“You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.”

— Napoleon Bonaparte

“The pen is mightier than the sword—if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp.”

— Terry Pratchett

“Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.”

— Honoré de Balzac

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

“There can be no tyrants where there are no slaves.”

— José Rizal

“Power is the most persuasive rhetoric.”

— Friedrich Schiller

“An unlimited power to tax involves necessarily the power to destroy.”

— Daniel Webster

“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

“We Jews have a secret weapon in our struggle with the Arabs: we have no place to go.”

— Golda Meir

“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

— Audre Lorde

“If man makes himself a worm, he must not complain when he is trodden on.”

— Immanuel Kant

“The printing press is the greatest weapon in the armoury of the modern commander.”

— T. E. Lawrence

“Show my head to the people; it is worth seeing.”

— Georges Jacques Danton

“When obedience ceases to be an irritant and becomes our quest, in that moment God will endow us with power.”

— Ezra Taft Benson

“Lust's passion will be served; it demands it, it militates it, it tyrannizes.”

— Marquis de Sade

“Man is a military animal, glories in gunpowder, and loves parade.”

— Philip James Bailey

“The nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master and deserves one.”

— Alexander Hamilton

“This is a ruthless world and one must be ruthless to cope with it.”

— Charlie Chaplin

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”

— Archimedes

“Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.”

— Plato

“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

— Mao Zedong

“Power is like being a lady: if you have to tell people you are, you aren't.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“My father was frightened of his mother; I was frightened of my father; and I am damned well going to see to it that my children are frightened of me.”

— King George V

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

— Lord Acton

“Put two or three men in positions of conflicting authority; this will force them to work at loggerheads, allowing you to be the ultimate arbiter.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

“I am the state.”

— Louis XIV

“No country should be without an atom bomb if it wants to be considered independent.”

— Charles de Gaulle

“You must never underestimate the power of the eyebrow.”

— Jack Black

“A good indignation brings out all one's powers.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If you make money your god, it will plague you like the devil.”

— Henry Fielding

“Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.”

— Napoleon Bonaparte

“Nothing has more strength than dire necessity.”

— Euripides

“I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

“The past cannot be changed; the future is yet in your power.”

— Mary Pickford

“Power is dangerous unless you have humility.”

— Richard J. Daley

“Audacity, more audacity, always audacity.”

— Georges Jacques Danton

“Four legs good, two legs bad.”

— George Orwell

“Principles have no real force except when one is well fed.”

— Mark Twain

“I can no longer obey; I have tasted command, and I cannot give it up.”

— Napoleon Bonaparte

“The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do.”

— Joseph Stalin

“Pride, envy, avarice—these are the sparks have set on fire the hearts of all men.”

— Dante Alighieri

“The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.”

— Henrik Ibsen

“One of the privileges of the great is to witness catastrophes from a terrace.”

— Jean Giraudoux

“And it is that both the devil and the angelic spirit present us with objects of desire to awaken our power of choice.”

— Rumi

“Thunder is good; thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.”

— Mark Twain

“The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

— Thucydides

“All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so give them the power to pull ours.”

— Aldous Huxley

“The greatness of a man's power is the measure of his surrender.”

— William Booth

“You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

— Marcus Aurelius

“The man of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

“Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn't have the power to say yes.”

— Eleanor Roosevelt

“Serious sport is war minus the shooting.”

— George Orwell

“Diplomacy is the art of restraining power.”

— Henry A. Kissinger

“You can do anything with bayonets except sit on them.”

— Thomas Hardy

“A specter is haunting Europe—the specter of communism.”

— Karl Marx

“If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one of them would remain in the army.”

— Frederick the Great

“There is always strength in numbers; the more individuals or organizations that you can rally to your cause, the better.”

— Mark Shields

“Clever tyrants are never punished.”

— Voltaire

“In every community, there is work to be done; in every nation, there are wounds to heal; in every heart, there is the power to do it.”

— Marianne Williamson

“Active evil is better than passive good.”

— William Blake

“But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”

— Ernest Hemingway

“The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.”

— Karl Marx

“Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.”

— Albert Einstein

“I can make more generals, but horses cost money.”

— Abraham Lincoln

“Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.”

— Napoleon Bonaparte

“The meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights.”

— J. Paul Getty

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

— Eleanor Roosevelt

“Women hold up half the sky.”

— Mao Zedong

“The king must die so that the country can live.”

— Maximilien Robespierre

“Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior, for it is a prince's part to pardon.”

— Francis Bacon

“An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.”

— Thomas Paine

“The few assume to be the deputies, but they are often only the despoilers of the many.”

— Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

“I have never made but one prayer to God; a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it.”

— Voltaire

“In time of peace, prepare for war.”

— Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus

“History shows that there are no invincible armies.”

— Joseph Stalin

“Ideas govern the world, or throw it into chaos.”

— Auguste Comte

“Women hold up half the sky.”

— Mao Zedong

“A witty woman is a treasure; a witty beauty is a power.”

— George Meredith

“The atom bomb was no great decision; it was merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness.”

— Harry S. Truman

“Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns; why should we let them have ideas?”

— Joseph Stalin

“If I were a Palestinian of the right age, I'd eventually join one of the terrorist organizations.”

— Ehud Barak

“Give him enough rope and he will hang himself.”

— Charlotte Brontë

“I believe in one thing only: the power of human will.”

— Joseph Stalin

“Let them hate, so long as they fear.”

— Lucius Accius

“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

— Mao Zedong

“If you owe the bank $100, that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem.”

— J. Paul Getty

“Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical.”

— Blaise Pascal

“Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.”

— Noam Chomsky

“Let my enemies devour each other.”

— Salvador Dali

“I will seize fate by the throat; it shall certainly never wholly overcome me.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

“My ego is sated.”

— George Michael

“We conquered, we conquer.”

— Plautus

“Beware of artists; they mix with all classes of society and are therefore most dangerous.”

— Queen Victoria

“Blood alone moves the wheels of history.”

— Martin Luther

“Power is my mistress; I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me.”

— Napoleon Bonaparte

“Heaven cannot brook two suns, nor earth two masters.”

— Alexander the Great

“Strength lies not in defense but in attack.”

— Adolf Hitler

“Every anarchist is a baffled dictator.”

— Benito Mussolini

“The secret of my influence has always been that it remained secret.”

— Salvador Dali

“Iron hand in a velvet glove.”

— Charles V

“Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.”

— Epictetus

“Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.”

— Albert Camus

“The tyrant dies and his rule is over; the martyr dies and his rule begins.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

“He who reigns within himself and rules his passions, desires, and fears is more than a king.”

— John Milton

“The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny.”

— David Hume

“I don't know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but by God, they frighten me.”

— Arthur Wellesley

“For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

“I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.”

— Socrates

“Power is the chance to impose your will within a social context, even when opposed and regardless of the integrity of that chance.”

— Max Weber

“When you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat.”

— Ronald Reagan

“I have no use for bodyguards, but I have a very specific use for two highly trained, certified public accountants.”

— Elvis Presley

“Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.”

— Charles de Gaulle

“Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber, and as deadly as a hit man.”

— Ronald Reagan

“We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.”

— George Orwell

“I am impelled not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession.”

— John Steinbeck

“There are only two forces that unite men: fear and interest.”

— Napoleon Bonaparte

“Power is the great aphrodisiac.”

— Henry A. Kissinger

“Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”

— John Milton

“Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.”

— Epictetus

“The mob is the mother of tyrants.”

— Diogenes

“The great are only great because we are on our knees; let us rise.”

— Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

“You will kill 10 of our men and we will kill 1 of yours, and in the end, it will be you who tire of it.”

— Ho Chi Minh

“War makes thieves, and peace hangs them.”

— George Herbert

“The ego is not master in its own house.”

— Sigmund Freud

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”

— Winston Churchill

“It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.”

— Emily Dickinson

“We have guided missiles and misguided men.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

— Isoroku Yamamoto

“The cold war isn't thawing; it is burning with a deadly heat. Communism isn't sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, fighting.”

— Richard M. Nixon

“Damnation seize my soul if I give you quarters, or take any from you.”

— Edward Teach

“The meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights.”

— J. Paul Getty

“In the absence of willpower, the most complete collection of virtues and talents is wholly worthless.”

— Aleister Crowley

“War is fear cloaked in courage.”

— William Westmoreland

“There are only two types of women: goddesses and doormats.”

— Pablo Picasso

“Any excuse will serve a tyrant.”

— Aesop

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

— Frederick Douglass

“When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.”

— Malala Yousafzai

“Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.”

— Charlie Chaplin

“The art of being a slave is to rule one's master.”

— Diogenes

“A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.”

— Winston Churchill

“Remember that credit is money.”

— Benjamin Franklin

“It's funny; all you have to do is say something nobody understands, and they'll do practically anything you want them to.”

— J.D. Salinger

“A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's hand.”

— Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“The only real power comes out of a long rifle.”

— Joseph Stalin

“Business is a combination of war and sport.”

— André Maurois

“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country; he won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

— George S. Patton

“It is legal because I wish it.”

— Louis XIV

“It's better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life.”

— Elizabeth Kenny

“Silence is a source of great strength.”

— Lao Tzu

“The greatness of a man's power is the measure of his surrender.”

— William Booth

“Who controls the issuance of money controls the government.”

— Nathan Meyer Rothschild

“One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.”

— Booker T. Washington

“Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength.”

— Eric Hoffer

“The future belongs to crowds.”

— Don DeLillo

“In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.”

— Charles de Gaulle

“Demography is destiny.”

— Auguste Comte

“Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.”

— Napoleon Bonaparte

“Communism is not love; communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy.”

— Mao Zedong

“Never wound a snake; kill it.”

— Harriet Tubman

“Persuasion is often more effectual than force.”

— Aesop

“Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.”

— George Orwell

“A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.”

— Benjamin Franklin

“Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

“Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.”

— Frank Zappa

“The power to tax is the power to destroy.”

— John Marshall

“No other terms than unconditional and immediate surrender; I propose to move immediately upon your works.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

“I am called a dog because I fawn on those who give me anything; I yelp at those who refuse; and I set my teeth in rascals.”

— Diogenes

“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

— George S. Patton

“Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.”

— Lao Tzu

“Valor is of no service; chance rules all, and the bravest often fall by the hands of cowards.”

— Tacitus

“You have undertaken to cheat me. I won't sue you for the law is too slow; I'll ruin you.”

— Cornelius Vanderbilt

“He who is firm in will molds the world to himself.”

— Johann Gottlieb Fichte

“Power is given only to those who dare to lower themselves and pick it up. Only one thing matters, one thing: to be able to dare.”

— Fyodor Dostoevsky

“To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful. This is power; it is glory on earth, and it is yours for the taking.”

— Agnes de Mille

“To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.”

— George Washington

“How many divisions has the Pope got?”

— Joseph Stalin

“Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.”

— Christian Lous Lange

“The tallest trees are most in the power of the winds; and ambitious men are most in the blasts of fortune.”

— William Penn

“Woe to the conquered.”

— Livy

“When you have no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”

— George Orwell

“I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too.”

— Elizabeth I

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

— Edmund Burke

“No kingdom has shed more blood than the kingdom of Christ.”

— Montesquieu

“A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.”

— Oscar Wilde

“The strong do what they have to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.”

— Thucydides

“Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.”

— Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought.”

— Peace Pilgrim

“Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.”

— Honoré de Balzac

“A war is justified if you're willing to send your son. If you're not willing to send your son, then how do you send someone else's?”

— Jesse Ventura

“Man, an animal that makes bargains.”

— A.C. Benson

“In waking a tiger, use a long stick.”

— Mao Zedong

“I will not be triumphed over.”

— Cleopatra

“Power is not alluring to pure minds.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“The condition of man is a condition of war of everyone against everyone.”

— Thomas Hobbes

“The measure of a man is what he does with power.”

— Plato

“We need a common enemy to unite us.”

— Condoleezza Rice

“The constitutions of most of our states assert that all power is inherent in the people; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.”

— William Shakespeare

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

— Gloria Steinem

“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.”

— Winston Churchill

“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

— Audre Lorde

“The virtue of paganism was strength; the virtue of Christianity is obedience.”

— Augustus Hare

“You can have no dominion greater or less than that over yourself.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

“Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.”

— Napoleon Bonaparte

“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”

— Isaac Asimov

“War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.”

— George Orwell

“The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche

“Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.”

— Timothy Leary

“One man with a gun can control 100 without one.”

— Vladimir Lenin

“I bear a charmed life.”

— William Shakespeare

“The real use of gunpowder is to make all men tall.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

— Isoroku Yamamoto

“The only safety for the conquered is to expect no safety.”

— Virgil

“A nation's strength ultimately consists in what it can do on its own and not in what it can borrow from others.”

— Indira Gandhi

“In its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating.”

— Michel Foucault

“Those who can bear all can dare all.”

— Luc de Clapiers

“Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

“University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.”

— Henry Kissinger

“The sword is the axis of the world and its power is absolute.”

— Charles de Gaulle

“An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

“Of all men's miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing.”

— Herodotus

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

— Abraham Lincoln

“Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.”

— Joseph Campbell

“Order is power.”

— Henri-Frederic Amiel

“I am responsible only to God and history.”

— Francisco Franco

“Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy if possible.”

— Stonewall Jackson

“The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his.”

— George S. Patton

“A word after a word after a word is power.”

— Margaret Atwood

“Imagination rules the world.”

— Napoleon Bonaparte

“Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.”

— Russell Baker

“Power is given only to those who dare to lower themselves and pick it up. Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare.”

— Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

— Lord Acton

“It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

“Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.”

— Bertrand Russell

“Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice; injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.”

— Samuel Johnson

“If men make war in slavish obedience to rules, they will fail.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

“Thus, what is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy's strategy.”

— Sun Tzu

“Let us have a dagger between our teeth, a bomb in our hands, and an infinite scorn in our hearts.”

— Benito Mussolini

“Woman begins by resisting a man's advances and ends by blocking his retreat.”

— Oscar Wilde

“They can conquer who believe they can.”

— Virgil

“Power over a man's subsistence is power over his will.”

— Alexander Hamilton

“Whether you like it or not, history is on our side; we will bury you.”

— Nikita Khrushchev

“To secure peace is to prepare for war.”

— Carl von Clausewitz

“In war, you can only be killed once; but in politics, many times.”

— Winston Churchill

“What I fear most is power with impunity. I fear abuse of power and the power to abuse.”

— Isabel Allende

“Nobody ever defended anything successfully, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.”

— George S. Patton

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”

— Albert Einstein

“If the opposition disarms, well and good; if it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves.”

— Joseph Stalin

“War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want.”

— William Tecumseh Sherman

“Every man now worships gold; all other reverence being done away.”

— Sextus Propertius

“From the first day to this, sheer greed was the driving spirit of civilization.”

— Friedrich Engels

“The art of war is simple enough: find out where your enemy is, get at him as soon as you can, strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

“When the sword is once drawn, the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation.”

— Alexander Hamilton

“It is more agreeable to have the power to give than to receive.”

— Winston Churchill

“Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.”

— George Orwell

“Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.”

— John Adams

“The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs.”

— Karl Marx

“Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

“All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.”

— James Madison

“There can be no prestige without mystery, for familiarity breeds contempt.”

— Charles de Gaulle

“Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.”

— Socrates

“One man with courage makes a majority.”

— Andrew Jackson

“Power doesn't corrupt people, people corrupt power.”

— William Gaddis

“You can kill ten of our men for every one we kill of yours, but even at those odds, you will lose and we will win.”

— Ho Chi Minh

“Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.”

— William Tecumseh Sherman

“Your empire is now like a tyranny; it may have been wrong to take it; it is certainly dangerous to let it go.”

— Pericles

“War is the trade of kings.”

— John Dryden

“History does nothing. It does not possess immense riches. It does not fight battles. It is men, real living men, who do all this.”

— Karl Marx

“Those who abjure violence can do so only because others are committing violence on their behalf.”

— George Orwell

“Give the peasants neither life nor death.”

— Tokugawa Ieyasu

“Who overcomes by force hath overcome but half his foe.”

— John Milton

“A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.”

— Napoleon Bonaparte

“The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.”

— Ferdinand Foch

“Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny; yet is itself pregnant with tyranny.”

— William Godwin

“These people are very unskilled in arms; with 50 men, they could all be subjected and made to do all that one wished.”

— Christopher Columbus

“The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it or flee from it.”

— Voltaire

“The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.”

— Edmund Burke

“Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.”

— Oprah Winfrey

“The power of intuitive understanding will protect you from harm until the end of your days.”

— Lao Tzu

“There's nothing more dangerous than a resourceful idiot.”

— Scott Adams

“It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.”

— David Hume

“We'll never solve the feminization of power until we solve the masculinity of wealth.”

— Gloria Steinem

“Mind moves matter.”

— Virgil

“The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world.”

— Oscar Wilde

“Money is the root of all evil, and yet it is such a useful root that we cannot get on without it any more than we can without potatoes.”

— Louisa May Alcott

“The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.”

— Audre Lorde

“Any form of art is a form of power; it has impact, it can affect change, it can not only move us, it makes us move.”

— Ossie Davis

“Character is power.”

— Booker T. Washington

“Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.”

— Charles de Gaulle

“The sinews of war are infinite money.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”

— James Madison

“What worries you masters you.”

— John Locke

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

— Lord Acton

“Power is given only to those who dare to lower themselves and pick it up. Only one thing matters, one thing: to be able to dare.”

— Fyodor Dostoevsky

“We are twice armed if we fight with faith.”

— Plato

“Money is power; and in that government which pays all the public officers of the states will all political power be substantially concentrated.”

— Andrew Jackson

“Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.”

— Will Rogers

“Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.”

— John F. Kennedy

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

“The strong man is strongest when alone.”

— Friedrich Schiller

“You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.”

— Booker T. Washington

“Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.”

— George Orwell

“Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.”

— Karl Marx

“When we hang the capitalists, they will sell us the rope we use.”

— Joseph Stalin

“The worst pain a man can suffer is to have insight into much and power over nothing.”

— Herodotus

“When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.”

— Winston Churchill

“Power is like being a lady; if you have to tell people you are, you aren't.”

— Margaret Thatcher

“I never said all actors are cattle. What I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.”

— Alfred Hitchcock

“To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.”

— George Washington

“L'état, c'est moi.”

— Louis XIV

“The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.”

— George Orwell

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.”

— C.S. Lewis

“Lack of money is the root of all evil.”

— George Bernard Shaw

“Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.”

— Francis Bacon

“All warfare is based on deception.”

— Sun Tzu

“To secure peace is to prepare for war.”

— Karl von Clausewitz

“The lack of money is the root of all evil.”

— Mark Twain

“Fishes live in the sea as men do on land; the great ones eat up the little ones.”

— Pericles

“The power of community to create health is far greater than any physician, clinic, or hospital.”

— Mark Hyman

“When a match has equal partners, then I fear not.”

— Aeschylus

“Fashion is a weapon that you can use when you need it.”

— Donatella Versace

“The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.”

— Carl von Clausewitz

“There's a great power in words, if you don't hitch too many of them together.”

— Josh Billings

“Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger.”

— Coco Chanel

“Circumstances do not rule men; men rule circumstances.”

— Herodotus

“Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.”

— Calvin Coolidge

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

— George Orwell

“Fervor is the weapon of choice of the impotent.”

— Frantz Fanon

“The Medici created and destroyed me.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

“The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea.”

— Mao Zedong

“Women may fall, when there's no strength in men.”

— William Shakespeare

“Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn't have the power to say yes.”

— Eleanor Roosevelt

“Despise the enemy strategically, but take him seriously tactically.”

— Mao Zedong

“Thank God men cannot fly and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.”

— Henry David Thoreau

“There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it never care for anything else thereafter.”

— Ernest Hemingway

“No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft.”

— H.G. Wells

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”

— Edmund Burke

“If this be treason, make the most of it.”

— Patrick Henry

“The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best.”

— Thomas Sowell

“If you must break the law, do it to seize power; in all other cases observe it.”

— Julius Caesar

“Tis best to weigh the enemy more mighty than he seems.”

— William Shakespeare

“Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.”

— Thomas Hobbes

“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

“The rich rob the poor, and the poor rob one another.”

— Sojourner Truth

“Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.”

— Thomas Hobbes

“Man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”

— Ernest Hemingway

“The first rule of business is do other men for they would do you.”

— Charles Dickens

“Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.”

— Honoré de Balzac

“United we stand, divided we fall.”

— Aesop

“In a man-to-man fight, the winner is he who has one more round in his magazine.”

— Erwin Rommel

“Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.”

— Mark Twain

“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.”

— Douglas MacArthur

“Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.”

— George Washington

“The great thieves lead away the little thief.”

— Diogenes

“Those who plot the destruction of others often perish in the attempt.”

— Phaedrus

“Politics is a blood sport.”

— Aneurin Bevan

“It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war.”

— John F. Kennedy

“He who angers you conquers you.”

— Elizabeth Kenny

“Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose.”

— Baltasar Gracián

“Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“Power is the great aphrodisiac.”

— Henry Kissinger

“All treaties between great states cease to be binding when they come in conflict with the struggle for existence.”

— Otto von Bismarck

“The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.”

— Thomas Paine

“Words are loaded pistols.”

— Jean-Paul Sartre

“As soon as man enters into a state of society, he loses the sense of his weakness; equality ceases and then commences the state of war.”

— Montesquieu

“If you must break the law, do it to seize power; in all other cases observe it.”

— Julius Caesar

“I put for the general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.”

— Thomas Hobbes

Power Quotes

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