Power Struggle Quotes

• A power struggle collapses when you withdraw your energy from it. Power struggles become uninteresting to you when you change your intention from winning to learning about yourself.

  Gary Zukav

  Relationship, Struggle, Winning

  FaceBook post by Gary Zukav from Oct 09, 2014

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• All struggles are essentially power struggles. Who will rule? Who will lead? Who will define, refine, confine, design? Who will dominate? All struggles are essentially power struggles,and most are no more intellectual than two rams knocking their heads together.

  Octavia Butler

  Struggle, Two, Design

  Octavia E. Butler (2017). “Earthseed: The Complete Series”, p.115, Open Road Media

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• We all experience power struggles in our lives - at the workplace, with our friends, in our love lives. In a way, we're all politicians.

  Beau Willimon

  Struggle, Love Life, Our Love

  "Watch My Show: House of Cards' Beau Willimon Answers Our Showrunner Survey". Interview with Michael Schneider, www.tvguide.com. March 13, 2013.

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• At the root of every tantrum and power struggle are unmet needs.

  Marshall B. Rosenberg

  Struggle, Communication, Roots

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• If there is no struggle, there is no progress....This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

  Frederick Douglass

  Struggle, Tyrants, Progress

  Speech, Canandaigua, N.Y., 4 Aug. 1857

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• Every relationship is fundamentally a power struggle, and the individual in power is whoever likes the other person less.

  Chuck Klosterman

  Relationship, Struggle, Power

  Chuck Klosterman (2004). “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto”, p.9, Simon and Schuster

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• No one can hit their target with their eyes closed.

  Paulo Coelho

  Struggle, Eye, Focus

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• The only way to win a power struggle is to give it up.

  Robert Mandel

  Struggle, Winning, Giving

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

  Frederick Douglass

  Freedom, Power, Tyrants

  Speech, Canandaigua, N.Y., 4 Aug. 1857

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• The twin sister to autonomy and freedom is responsibility and accountability. You cannot have one with out the other. If someone is given an area of responsibility, not only must they be set free to do it, they must also be held accountable for what they do. Accountability clarifies freedom. In the teams and companies where you see boundary confusion, power struggles, control, over-reaching of one's line of responsibility, you will also see lapses in accountability as well.

  Henry Cloud

  Team, Struggle, Responsibility

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• When we see the need for deep change, we usually see it as something that needs to take place in someone else. In our roles of authority, such as parent, teacher, or boss, we are particularly quick to direct others to change. Such directives often fail, and we respond to the resistance by increasing our efforts. The power struggle that follows seldom results in change or brings about excellence. One of the most important insights about the need to bring about deep change in others has to do with where deep change actually starts.

  Robert E. Quinn

  Change, Teacher, Struggle

  Robert E. Quinn (1996). “Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within”, Jossey-Bass

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• It’s the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth.

  Sarah Dessen

  Struggle, Fighting, Earning

  Sarah Dessen (2009). “Along for the Ride”, p.211, Penguin

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• When people who are seeking change start out, they are driven by commitment to a cause. But as internecine power struggles take over, one-time idealists fall prey to corruption. They become just as corrupt and manipulative as the system that they want to overthrow.

  Anurag Kashyap

  Struggle, Fall, Commitment

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• I believe a family can be like that sports team. A successful family wins as a team. But if its members are intent upon winning their own individual battles with one another, the team loses. A winning solution is to work out the differences and, when it's over, let it be over. Then they can get back in the game as a team.

  Steve Goodier

  Sports, Team, Believe

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• The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.

  Milan Kundera

  Strength, Memories, Struggle

  The Book of Laughter and Forgetting pt. 1, sec. 2 (1980) (translation by Michael Henry Heim)

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• Spare me the political events and power struggles, as the whole earth is my homeland and all men are my fellow countrymen.

  Khalil Gibran

  Struggle, Men, Political

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• She missed the built environment of New York City. It was only in an urban landscape, amid straight lines and architecture, that she could situate herself in human time and history. She missed people. She missed human intrigue, drama and power struggles. She needed her own species, not to talk to, necessarily, but just to be among, as a bystander in a crowd or an anonymous witness.

  Ruth Ozeki

  New York, Drama, Struggle

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• Somehow we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race which no one can win to a positive contest to harness man's creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all of the nations of the world.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Peace, Struggle, Creativity

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.133, Beacon Press

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• Life, from beginning to end, is fear. Yes, it is pain, yes, it is desire, but more than anything it is fear; a certain amount rational, an enormous amount irrational. All political cruelties stem from that overwhelming fear. To push back the threatening forces, to offer primitive sacrifices, to give up some in the hope that others will be savedthat is the power struggle. That is the outsidedness of the poor, the feeble, the infantile. That is the outsidedness of Jews. That is the outsidedness of blacks. That is the outsidedness of women.

  Vivian Gornick

  Giving Up, Pain, Fear

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• What is the difference between an obstacle and an opportunity? Our attitude toward it. Every opportunity has a difficulty, and every difficulty has an opportunity.

  J. Sidlow Baxter

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational Sports

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• And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

  Anais Nin

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

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• I need to get everything straight. I'm not involved in a power struggle between black and white.

  Muhammad Ali

  Struggle, Black And White, Needs

  "Parkinson" with Michael Parkinson, www.mirror.co.uk. 1971.

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• Whenever you want to achieve something, keep your eyes open, concentrate and make sure you know exactly what it is you want. No one can hit their target with their eyes closed.

  Paulo Coelho

  Inspiring, Meaningful, Struggle

  FaceBook post by Paulo Coelho from May 06, 2014

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• ~I use humor instead of getting into that whole yes and no thing all the time. It's about just getting them to laugh rather than getting in power struggles.~

  Marcia Cross

  Struggle, Parenting, Laughing

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• I loved her more than she loved me, that was the problem. A basic imbalance. Relationships like that never last, however hard you try. And now she's pregnant and in love with a man who'll never love her the way she loves him. It's a series of vicious circles, and the only way to stop it is to find someone who loves you the same. No power struggle. No insecurities. Just friendship. Because you can never be friends with someone if you love them too much.

  Lisa Jewell

  Struggle, Love You, Men

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