Power Quotes - Page 30

• The property of power is to protect.

  Blaise Pascal

  Protect, Property

  Blaise Pascal (2015). “Pensees: Thoughts on Religion”, p.103, Letcetera Publishing

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• I shan't be pulling the levers there but I shall be a very good back-seat driver.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Levers, Very Good, Drivers

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• Purchasing power is a license to purchase power.

  Raoul Vaneigem

  Wealth, Purchasing, Flogging

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• To get power over is to defile. To possess is to defile.

  Simone Weil

  Simone Weil (2015). “First and Last Notebooks: Supernatural Knowledge”, p.70, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an organized peace.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Peace, War, Community

  Woodrow Wilson (2015). “Wilson, Volume V: Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace, 1916-1917”, p.265, Princeton University Press

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• 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

  Running, Men, Should Have

  Olive Schreiner (2013). “The Story of an African Farm”, p.172, Courier Corporation

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• If you sit in judgment, investigate, if you sit in supreme power, sit in command.

  Seneca the Younger

  Judgment, Command, Supreme

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• Authority founded on injustice is never of long duration.

  Seneca the Younger

  Long, Duration, Injustice

  "Medea". Book by Seneca the Younger, 62 AD.

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• Power is the by-product of understanding.

  Jacob Bronowski

  Understanding, Products

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• The power of one fair face makes my love sublime, for it has weaned my heart from low desires.

  Michelangelo

  Heart, Sublime, Desire

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• In some departments of our daily life, in which we imagine ourselves free agents, we are ruled by dictators exercising great power.

  Edward Bernays

  Life, Freedom, Exercise

  Edward L. Bernays (1930). “Propaganda”

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• While few judges or prosecutors would be afraid to exercise their perfectly legitimate discretion in favour of an ordinary man, not to mention a minority group member, most would be terrified to exercise the same discretion for someone politically, financially or socially powerful.

  Conrad Black

  Powerful, Exercise, Men

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• The most immediate task is to make certain that no state or combination of states gains the capacity to expel the United States from Eurasia or even to diminish significantly its decisive arbitration role.

  Zbigniew Brzezinski

  Roles, Gains, United States

  "Afghanistan in the '80s was superpowers' battle over Eurasia - Brzezinski". The RT Interview, www.rt.com. September 21, 2010.

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• This war has been motivated by pride or arrogance, by a desire to control oil wealth, by a desire to implant our programs. (talking about the Iraq war)

  Jimmy Carter

  War, Pride, Oil

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• The Bush Administration do have moral values. Their moral values are very explicit: shine the boots of the rich and the powerful, kick everybody else in the face, and let your grandchildren pay for it. That simple principle predicts almost everything that's happening.

  Noam Chomsky

  Powerful, Simple, Grandchildren

  Interview by Steve Scher on KUOW-FM 94.9, 2004.

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• The dangers of unexamined and unregulated monopoly power, particularly in the state executive, are hardly news. The right reaction is not passive acquiescence.

  Noam Chomsky

  Acquiescence, News, Danger

  Noam Chomsky (2015). “Because We Say So”, p.108, City Lights Books

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• It is not that I am not a fan of American exceptionalism. That is like saying I am not a fan of the moon being made out of green cheese - it does not exist. Powerful states have quite typically considered themselves to be exceptionally magnificent, and the United States is no exception to that. The basis for it is not very substantial to put it politely.

  Noam Chomsky

  Powerful, Moon, Green

  Interview with "The Young Turks", October 26, 2010.

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• I like the theater, dining and chasing women. Let me put it this way: I am a single, straight billionaire in Manhattan. It's like a wet dream.

  Michael Bloomberg

  Dream, Dining, Manhattan

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• Remember, the U.S. is a powerful state, it's not like Libya. If Libya wants to carry out terrorist acts, they hire Carlos the Jackal or something. The United States hires terrorist states.

  Noam Chomsky

  Powerful, Want, United States

  "Distorted Morality: America’s War on Terror?". Talk at Harvard University, chomsky.info. February 2002.

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• To have security against atomic bombs and against the other biological weapons, we have to prevent war, for if we cannot prevent war every nation will use every means that is at their disposal; and in spite of all promises they make, they will do it. At the same time, so long as war is not prevented, all the governments of the nations have to prepare for war, and if you have to prepare for war, then you are in a state where you cannot abolish war.

  Albert Einstein

  War, Mean, Responsibility

  Address to the symposium "The Social Task of the Scientist in the Atomic Era" at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, November 17, 1946.

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• We're all brilliant at something. I discovered my powers when I was four years old. When you're young you're more in touch with your real talents, but so often the 30 year slog knocks it out of people.

  Uri Geller

  Life, Real, Years

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• These powerbrokers, which bomb innocent countries and slaughter people, and, you know, pump the food chain full of garbage and just everything else they do, it's probably something fun for them. They really get off on being bad little boys.

  Alex Jones

  Country, Fun, Boys

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• When our days become dreary with low hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Dark, Night, Yesterday

  "Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?". Book by Martin Luther King, Jr., 1967.

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• Most power is power to coerce somebody. We don't have the power to coerce anybody.

  Charles Koch

  Coerce

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• No centralized government, no matter how big, how smart or how powerful, can effectively and efficiently control much of society in a beneficial way. On the contrary, big governments are inherently inefficient and harmful.

  Charles Koch

  Powerful, Smart, Government

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