Power Quotes

Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best.

Edward Paul Abbey

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Lord Acton

I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature; and that power, whether vested in many or a few, is ever grasping, and like the grave, cries "Give, give!"

Abigail Smith Adams

Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.

Saul Alinsky

I was allowed to ring the bell for five minutes until everyone was in assembly. It was the beginning of power.

Jeffrey Archer

We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom.

Stephen Vincent Benet

We should keep silent about those in power; to speak well of them almost implies flattery; to speak ill of them while they are alive is dangerous, and when they are dead is cowardly.

Jean de La Bruyere

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

Power doesn't have to show off. Power is confident, self-assuring, self-starting and self-stopping, self-warming and self-justifying. When you have it, you know it.

Ralph Ellison

Power is not something that can be assumed or discarded at will like underwear.

John Kenneth Galbraith

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

Eric Hoffer

Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.

Eric Hoffer

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

Power! Did you ever hear of men being asked whether other souls should have power or not? It is born in them. You may dam up the fountain of water, and make it a stagnant marsh, or you may let it run free and do its work; but you cannot say whether it shall be there; it is there. And it will act, if not openly for good, then covertly for evil; but it will act.

Olive Schreiner

You only have power over people so long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything he's no longer in your power - he's free again.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

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

Gloria Steinem