Powerless Quotes

• When you do nothing you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better.

  Maya Angelou

  Hope, Honesty, Integrity

  60 Copy quote

• But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.

  Lysander Spooner

  Government, Constitution, Cases

  Lysander Spooner (1971). “The collected works of Lysander Spooner”

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• Worry comes from the belief you are powerless.

  Robert Anthony

  Worry, Belief

  14 Copy quote

• The deep root of failure in our lives is to think, 'Oh how useless and powerless I am.' It is essential to think strongly and forcefully, 'I can do it,' without boasting or fretting.

  Dalai Lama

  Thinking, Roots, Essentials

  15 Copy quote

• Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.

  Paulo Freire

  Peace, Honesty, Powerful

  Paulo Freire (1985). “The Politics of Education: Culture, Power, and Liberation”, p.122, Greenwood Publishing Group

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  Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Honesty, Integrity, Writing

  1847; quoted by propagandist and language maven William Safire, New York Times Magazine, 13 December 1998.

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• Risk is trying to control something you are powerless over.

  Eric Clapton

  Risk, Trying

  99 Copy quote

• Never feel too small or powerless to make a difference.

  Anita Roddick

  Differences, Making A Difference, Activism

  Anita Roddick (2001). “Take It Personally: How to Make Conscious Choices to Change the World”, HarperThorsons

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• Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical.

  Blaise Pascal

  Strength, Umpires, Justice

  Blaise Pascal (2013). “Blaise Pascal Thoughts: Selected and Translated”, p.56, Cambridge University Press

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  There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.

  Elie Wiesel

  Freedom, Philosophy, Military

  Elie Wiesel (2011). “From the Kingdom of Memory: Reminiscences”, p.182, Schocken

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• A man is truly free, even here in this embodied state, if he knows that God is the true agent and he by himself is powerless to do anything.

  Ramakrishna

  Men, Agents, States

  Ramakrishna (1960). “Sayings: The Most Exhaustive Collection of Them, Their Number Being 1120”

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• Unlike a lot of people, I don't feel powerless. I know I can do something. But anyone can do something, it's not about being special. It's about deciding to do it - to dive into work for peace and justice and care for everybody on the planet.

  Patch Adams

  People, Justice, Special

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Reason is powerless in the expression of Love.

  Rumi

  Love, Happiness, Spiritual

  51 Copy quote

• Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid.

  Ronald Reagan

  Strength, Peace, War

  Ronald Reagan (2004). “Speaking My Mind: Selected Speeches”, p.99, Simon and Schuster

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• Just to live in the country is a full-time job. You don't have to do anything. The idle pursuit of making a living is pushed to one side, where it belongs, in favor of living itself, a task of such immediacy, variety, beauty, and excitement that one is powerless to resist its wild embrace.

  E. B. White

  Country, Jobs, Tasks

  8 Copy quote

• We are not powerless. We have tremendous potential for good or ill. How we choose to use that power is up to us; but first we must choose to use it. We're told every day, You can't change the world. But the world is changing every day. Only question is who's doing it? You or somebody else?

  J. Michael Straczynski

  Use, World, Firsts

  3 Copy quote

• The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both.

  Vaclav Havel

  Leadership, Powerful, Hero

  "Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Hvížďala". Book by Václav Havel, translated by Paul Wilson. Chapter 5: "The Politics of Hope", 1990.

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• Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful.

  Molly Ivins

  Powerful, Weapons, Satire

  The Mouth of Texas", People Weekly, December 9, 1991.

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• Time, whose tooth gnaws away everything else, is powerless against truth.

  Thomas Huxley

  Trust, Time, Truth

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Collected Essays”, p.255, Cambridge University Press

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• Men are strong so long as they represent a strong idea they become powerless when they oppose it.

  Sigmund Freud

  Being Strong, Military, Men

  Sigmund Freud (2014). “Freud Verbatim”, p.38, The Overlook Press

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• I regret to say that we of the FBI are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce.

  J. Edgar Hoover

  Witty, Sex, Regret

  Quoted in the NewYork Times, 6 Oct 1980.

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• Excessive fear is always powerless.

  Aeschylus

  Power

  Aeschylus (2013). “Aeschylus I: The Persians, The Seven Against Thebes, The Suppliant Maidens, Prometheus Bound”, p.140, University of Chicago Press

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• Apathy is the self-defense of the powerless.

  Letty Cottin Pogrebin

  Self, Apathy, Defense

  5 Copy quote

• Lack of self-worth is the fundamental source of all emotional pain. A feeling of insecurity, unworthiness and lack of valueis the core experience of powerlessness.

  Gary Zukav

  Relationship, Spiritual, Pain

  FaceBook post by Gary Zukav from Apr 03, 2015

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• The truth is always more powerful and stronger than love, because the love becomes powerless in the absence of the truth.

  Anuj

  Powerful, Love Is, Stronger

  6 Copy quote