Power Over Others Quotes

• Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Strength, Spiritual, True Power

  Eckhart Tolle (2010). “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment”, p.45, New World Library

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• The possession of power over others is inherently destructive both to the possessor of the power and to those over whom it is exercised.

  George Davis Herron

  Government, Greed, Possession

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• As our power over others increases, we become less free; for to retain it, we must make ourselves its servants.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Increase, Servant

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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  The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.

  John Stuart Mill

  War, Power, Libertarian Party

  On Liberty ch. 1 (1859)

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  When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.

  Jimi Hendrix

  Love, Inspirational, Life

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• Power is a poison well known for thousands of years. If only no one were ever to acquire material power over others! But to the human being who has faith in some force that holds dominion over all of us, and who is therefore conscious of his own limitations, power is not necessarily fatal. For those, however, who are unaware of any higher sphere, it is a deadly poison. For them there is no antidote.

  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  Years, Have Faith, Dominion

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• True Power is within, and it is available now.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Spiritual, True Power, Awareness

  Eckhart Tolle (2010). “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment”, p.45, New World Library

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• Does political correctness have a good side? Yes, it does, for it makes us re-examine attitudes, and that is always useful. The trouble is that, with all popular movements, the lunatic fringe so quickly ceases to be a fringe; the tail begins to wag the dog. For every woman or man who is quietly and sensibly using the idea to examine our assumptions, there are twenty rabble-rousers whose real motive is desire for power over others. The fact that they see themselves as antiracists or feminists or whatever does not make them any less rabble-rousers.

  Doris Lessing

  Dog, Attitude, Real

  "Unexamined Mental Attitudes Left Behind By Communism" by Doris Lessing in "Our Country, Our Culture: The Politics of Political Correctness" edited by Edith Kurzweil and William Philips, 1994.

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• The passion for power over others can never cease to threaten mankind, and is always sure of finding new and unforseen allies in continuing its martyrology.

  Lord Acton

  Passion, Allies, Mankind

  Lord Acton (2016). “Lectures on Modern History: Great Event”, p.27, VM eBooks

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• A person is not a democrat thanks to his ignorance of literature and the arts, nor an elitist because he or she has cultivated them. The possession of knowledge makes for unjust power over others only if used for that very purpose: a physician or lawyer or clergyman can exploit or humiliate others, or he can be a humanitarian and a benefactor. In any case, it is absurd to conjure up behind anybody who exploits his educated status the existence of an "elite" scheming to oppress the rest of us.

  Jacques Barzun

  Art, Ignorance, Physicians

  "Exeunt the Humanities". Essay by Jacques Barzun (1980) published in his book "The Culture We Deserve" (p. 117), 1989.

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• In 1776, 1950, or now, there's never been a golden age of liberty, and there never will be. People who value freedom will always have to defend it from those who claim the right to wield power over others. ... And, in today's world, that means more than a musket by the door. It means being an active citizen.

  David Boaz

  Mean, Doors, People

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• There are few problems in the world that economic prosperitycannot help solve. Yet the engines of that prosperity are under fierceattack. The forces that seek power over others have gained the upperhand against those that seek freedom. By harming wealth creation,they cause even more strain on society. Historically, this is nothingnew. State domination over its subjects has roots that connect statism,totalitarianism, communism, and socialism to more modern-day variantsof liberalism and progressivism. It is a constant fight and we mustwin.

  Ziad K. Abdelnour

  Fighting, Roots, Wealth Creation

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• You give bureaucrats power over others, and when the others are poor and helpless, nothing matches government. More than any single exploitive tyrannical force, the possibility of what government can do is absolutely terrifying.

  Millicent Fenwick

  Government, Giving, Gossip

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• Humility is often a false front we employ to gain power over others.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Humility, Gains, Fronts

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• He who stands on tiptoe
  doesn't stand firm.
  He who rushes ahead
  doesn't go far.
  He who tries to shine
  dims his own light.
  He who defines himself
  can't know who he really is.
  He who has power over others
  can't empower himself.
  He who clings to his work
  will create nothing that endures.

  Laozi

  Inspirational, Light, Empowering

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• We need to redefine strength in men, not as the power over other people, but as forces for justice.

  Jackson Katz

  Men, People, Justice

  "This Is The Real Problem With Male ‘Strength’", www.huffingtonpost.com. February 20, 2014.

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• Abused as we abuse it at present, dramatic art is in no sense cathartic; it is merely a form of emotional masturbation. It is the rarest thing to find a player who has not had his character affected for the worse by the practice of his profession. Nobody can make a habit of self-exhibition, nobody can exploit his personality for the sake of exercising a kind of hypnotic power over others, and remain untouched by the process.

  Aldous Huxley

  Art, Character, Exercise

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• Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others - only to lose it over themselves.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Power, Men, Folly

  Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam”, p.382, Random House

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• How many of those who are insecure seek power over others as a compensation for inadequacy and wind up bringing consequences down upon their heads and those around them? How many hide out in their lives, resist the summons to show up, or live fugitive lives, jealous, projecting onto others, and then wonder why nothing ever really feels quite right. How many proffer compliance with the other, buying peace at the price of soul, and wind up with neither?

  James Hollis

  Jealous, Insecure, Wind

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• In the late '60s, people were saying we need power to, not power over. Power to do, accomplish, create, not power over other people.

  Gloria Steinem

  People, Needs, Accomplish

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• Truth gives no advantage. It gives no higher status, no power over others; all you get is truth and freedom from the false.

  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

  Giving, Advantage, Higher

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• Animal cruelty is one of the most unfortunate and barbaric demonstrations of human beings manipulating ill conceived notions of ‘power’ over other species.

  Ian Somerhalder

  Animal, Demonstration, Cruelty

  "Q&A With Actor and Activist Ian Somerhalder ( Lost, The Vampire Diaries ) on Social Change and Animal Rights". Quora Interveiw, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 5, 2013.

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• If you worship power, you will feel weak and afraid, needing ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay.

  David Foster Wallace

  Worship, Weak, Feels

  "'Plain Old Untrendy Troubles and Emotions'". www.theguardian.com. September 19, 2008.

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• Small souls who seek power over others first destroy the faith those others might have in themselves.

  Frank Herbert

  Soul, Might, Firsts

  Frank Herbert (2010). “God Emperor Of Dune: The Fourth Dune Novel”, p.218, Hachette UK

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• I have met some highly intelligent believers, but history has no record to say that [s]he knew or understood the mind of god. Yet this is precisely the qualification which the godly must claim—so modestly and so humbly—to possess. It is time to withdraw our 'respect' from such fantastic claims, all of them aimed at the exertion of power over other humans in the real and material world.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Atheist, Real, Godly

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