Human Power Quotes - Page 2

• Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.

  Samuel Johnson

  Life, Men, Spheres

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1859). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.145

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• Until relatively recently, law enforcement's ability to determine an individual's location and track their movements was largely limited to natural human powers of observation.

  Ron Wyden

  Law, Track, Enforcement

  "Congress Should Resolve Location Tracking Questions" by Sen. Ron Wyden, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 8, 2011.

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• Everything teaches transition, transference, metamorphosis: therein is human power, in transference, not in creation; & therein is human destiny, not in longevity but in removal. We dive & reappear in new places.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Destiny, Transition, Metamorphosis

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1973). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks: 1847-1848”, p.76, Harvard University Press

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• The dove descending breaks the air With flame of incandescent terror Of which the tongues declare The one discharge from sin and error. The only hope, or else despair Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre- To be redeemed from fire by fire. Who then devised the torment? Love. Love is the unfamiliar Name Behind the hands that wove The intolerable shirt of flame Which human power cannot remove. We only live, only suspire Consumed by either fire or fire.

  T. S. Eliot

  Lying, Love Is, Fire

  Four Quartets "Little Gidding" pt. 4 (1942)

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• Dear reader, traditional human power structures and their reign of darkness are about to be rendered obsolete.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Darkness, Reign, Structure

  Buckminster Fuller (1992). “Cosmography: A Posthumous Scenario for the Future of Humanity: A Posthumous Scenario for the Future of Humanity”, p.264, The Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller

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• It is the paradox of life that the way to miss pleasure is to seek it first. The very first condition of lasting happiness is that a life should be full of purpose, aiming at something outside self. As a matter of experience, we find that true happiness comes in seeking other things, in the manifold activities of life, in the healthful outgoing of all human powers.

  Hugh Black

  Happiness, Self, Missing

  Hugh Black (1901). “Culture and Restraint”

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• The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility.

  Vaclav Havel

  Lying, Hero, Heart

  International Herald Tribune, February 21, 1990.

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• Love is the unfamiliar Name
  Behind the hands that wove
  The intolerable shirt of flame
  Which human power cannot remove.

  T. S. Eliot

  Life, Love Is, Flames

  Four Quartets "Little Gidding" pt. 4 (1942)

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• Envy, jealousy, ambition, any kind of greed are passions; love is an action, the practice of human power, which can be practiced only in freedom and never as a result of compulsion.
  Love is an activity, not a passive affect; it is a "standing in," not a "falling for." In the most general way, the active character of love can be described by stating that love is primarily giving, not receiving.

  Erich Fromm

  Life, Fall, Passion

  Erich Fromm (2013). “The Art of Loving”, p.29, Open Road Media

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• Kings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness... We claim them from a higher source - from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence, which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power, without taking our lives.

  John Dickinson

  Kings, Taken, Rights

  John Dickinson (2009). “The Writings of John Dickinson”, p.262, Applewood Books

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• The contest of strength is not only a contest of military and economic power, but also a contest of human power and morale. Military and economic power is necessarily wielded by people.

  Mao Zedong

  Military, People, Economic

  Zedong Mao, Mao Tse-Tung (1965). “Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung”, Pergamon

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• The ways of Providence being inscrutable, and the justice of it not to be scanned by the shallow eye of humanity, nor to be counteracted by the utmost efforts of human power or wisdom, resignation, and as far as the strength of our reason and religion can carry us, a cheerful acquiescence to the Divine Will, is what we are to aim.

  George Washington

  Eye, Justice, Effort

  George Washington, John Clement Fitzpatrick, David Maydole Matteson, United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission (1944). “The writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources, 1745-1799: prepared under the direction of the United States George Washington bicentennial commission and published by authority of Congress”

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• No man can make a speech alone. It is the great human power that strikes up from a thousand minds that acts upon him, and makes the speech.

  James A. Garfield

  Men, Mind, Speech

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• Of all human powers operating on the affairs of mankind, none is greater than that of competition.

  Henry Clay

  Competition, Affair, Mankind

  Henry Clay (1857). “The speeches of Henry Clay”, p.469

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• Who enslaves another's manhood with weak human power alone, Lays a heavier yoke of bondage thoughtlessly upon his own.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Slavery, Yoke, Weak

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• Can it be possible that all human sympathies can thrive, and all human powers be exercised, and all human joys increase, if we live with all our might with the thirty or forty people next to us, telegraphing kindly to all other people, to be sure? Can it be possible that our passion for large cities, and large parties, and large theatres, and large churches, develops no faith nor hope nor love which would not find aliment and exercise in a little "world of our own"?

  Edward Everett Hale

  Party, Passion, Exercise

  Edward Everett Hale (1899). “Works”

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• It seems to me that our problem has a lot less to do with the mechanics of solar power than the politics of human power—specifically whether there can be a shift in who wields it, a shift away from corporations and toward communities, which in turn depends on whether or not the great many people who are getting a rotten deal under our current system can build a determined and diverse enough social force to change the balance of power.

  Naomi Klein

  People, Community, Balance

  Naomi Klein (2014). “This Changes Everything: Capitalism Vs. The Climate”, p.25, Simon and Schuster

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• The experience I'm talking about has given me one certainty: the salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and in human responsibility. Without a global revolution in human consciousness, nothing will change for the better, and the catastrophe toward which this world is headed will be unavoidable.

  Vaclav Havel

  Lying, Heart, Responsibility

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• You convey too great a compliment when you say that I have earned the right to the presidential nomination. No man can establish such an obligation upon any part of the American people. My country owes me no debt. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor. In no other land could a boy from a country village, without inheritance or influential friends, look forward with unbounded hope. My whole life has taught me what America means. I am indebted to my country beyond any human power to repay.

  Herbert Hoover

  Girl, Country, Mean

  Herbert Hoover (1929). “The New Day: Campaign Speeches of Herbert Hoover, 1928”, p.3, Stanford University Press

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• Ah, how wonderful is the advent of the Spring!—the great annual miracle.... which no force can stay, no violence restrain, like love, that wins its way and cannot be withstood by any human power, because itself is divine power. If Spring came but once in a century, instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake, and not in silence, what wonder and expectation would there be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change!... We are like children who are astonished and delighted only by the second-hand of the clock, not by the hour-hand.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Children, Spring, Heart

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• What makes human power erupt like a volcano? What destroy's it? The civilizations of Rome, Greece, Egypt, China were all eruptions from a human core.

  Charles Lindbergh

  Power, Volcanoes, Egypt

  Charles Augustus Lindbergh (1978). “Autobiography of values”, Harcourt

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• Though nihilism has been relentlessly criticized for overemphasizing the dark side of human experience, it might be equally true that this overemphasis represents a needed counterbalance to shallow optimism and arrogant confidence in human power. Nihilism reminds us that we are not gods, and that despite all of the accomplishments and wonders of civilization, humans cannot alter the fact that they possess only a finite amount of mastery and control over their own destinies.

  John Marmysz

  Dark, Destiny, Civilization

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• Marx is thought of as an implacable foe of capitalism. But go back and read the first section of the Communist Manifesto. Notice how it contains a paean of praise for the way capitalism and the bourgeoisie have both enriched the human powers of production and also enabled us to see with clear vision the nature of human society and human history.

  Allen W. Wood

  Vision, Bourgeoisie, Way

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• Beauty is the greatest of human powers. Any power without counterbalance or control becomes autocratic and leads to abuse and to folly. Despotism in a government is insanity; in woman, fantasy.

  Honore de Balzac

  Beauty, Power, Government

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• It was stated, . . . that the value of architecture depended on two distinct characters:--the one, the impression it receives from human power; the other, the image it bears of the natural creation.

  John Ruskin

  Character, Two, Bears

  John Ruskin (1849). “The Seven Lamps of Architecture”, p.94

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