Human Power Quotes - Page 2

• 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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• 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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• 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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• It is well, when the wise and the learned discover new truths; but how much better to diffuse the truths already discovered, amongst the multitude! Every addition to true knowledge is an addition to human power; and while a philosopher is discovering one new truth, millions may be propagated amongst the people. Diffusion, then, rather than discovery, is the duty of our government.

  Horace Mann

  Wise, Learning, Knowledge

  "Lectures on Education".

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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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• 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 Bill of Rights should contain the general principles of natural and civil liberty. It should be to a community what the eternal laws and obligations of morality are to the conscience. It should be unalterable by any human power.

  Thomas Paine

  Rights, Law, Community

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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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• At present, when the prevailing forms of society have become hindrances to the free expression of human powers, it is precisely the abstract branches of science, mathematics and theoretical physics, which ... offer a less distorted form of knowledge than other branches of science which are interwoven with the pattern of daily life, and the practicality of which seemingly testifies to their realistic character.

  Max Horkheimer

  Character, Expression, Theoretical Physics

  Max Horkheimer (1972). “Critical Theory: Selected Essays”, p.133, A&C Black

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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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• All the best things and treasures of this world are not to be produced by each generation for itself; but we are all intended, not to carve our work in snow that will melt, but each and all of us to be continually rolling a great white gathering snow-ball, higher and higher, larger and larger, along the Alps of human power.

  John Ruskin

  White, Snow, Progress

  John Ruskin (188?). “Works: "A joy forever." The art of England. "Our fathers have told us." The laws of Fesole. The pleasures of England. Fiction fair and foul. Notes on the construction of sheepfolds. Inaugural address ... Cambridge School of Art, October 29th, 1858. The storm cloud of the nineteenth century. The opening of the Crystal Palace”

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• The Founding Fathers believed devoutly that there was a God and that the unalienable rights of man were rooted - not in the state, nor the legislature, nor in any other human power - but in God alone.

  Tom C. Clark

  Father, Men, Rights

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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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• We have climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from human power and transportation infrastructure. At the same time, we have 2 billion people who live in energy poverty.

  Ramez Naam

  People, Energy, Climate

  "Q&A with Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment". Interview with Mark Tercek, bigthink.com.

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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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• 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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• 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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• We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable - but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Art, Kings, Divine Right

  Ursula K. Le Guin (2016). “Words Are My Matter: Writings About Life and Books, 2000-2016, with a Journal of a WriterÕs Week”, p.115, Small Beer Press

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• Every man possesses that which is according to the image of God, for the gifts of God are irrevocable (Rom. 11:29). But only a few ? those who are virtuous and holy, and have imitated the goodness of God to the limit of human powers ? possess that which is according to the likeness of God.

  John of Damascus

  Christian, Men, Limits

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