Powerlessness Quotes - Page 2

• From that awful encounter of the soul with the outer world, enunciation, wisdom, and charity are born; and with their birth a new life begins. To take into the inmost shrine of the soul the irresistible forces whose puppets we seem to be - Death and change, the irrevocableness of the past, and the powerlessness of Man before the blind hurry of the universe from vanity to vanity - to feel these things and know them is to conquer them.

  Bertrand Russell

  Past, Men, Vanity

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays”, p.52, Booklassic

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• Powerlessness and silence go together.

  Margaret Atwood

  Silence, Together

  "Margaret Atwood on a voyage to the world's end" by Tim Adams, www.theguardian.com. August 29, 2009.

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• I could not stop something I knew was wrong and terrible. I had an awful sense of powerlessness.

  Andrei Sakharov

  Awful, Terrible

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• We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.

  Marianne Williamson

  Confidence, Fear, Famous Motivational

  Marianne Williamson (2012). “A Course in Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons for Surrendering Your Weight Forever”, p.230, Hay House, Inc

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• Fat is a way of saying no to powerlessness and self-denial.

  Susie Orbach

  Self, Denial, Way

  Susie Orbach (1997). “Fat is a Feminist Issue: The Anti-diet Guide for Women”, Bbs Publishing Corporation

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• I think in the case of horror, it's a chance to confront a lot of your worse fears and those fears usually have to do, ironically, with powerlessness and isolation.

  Adam Arkin

  Thinking, Chance, Horror

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

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• As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

  Nelson Mandela

  Inspirational, Strength, Confidence

  Nelson Mandela (2011). “Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations”, p.11, Pan Macmillan

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• The kingdom of God is for the broken hearted

  Fred Rogers

  Broken, Kingdoms, Kingdom Of God

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• Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.

  Marianne Williamson

  Inspirational, Life, Encouraging

  A Return to Love ch. 7 (1992). Frequently misattributed to Nelson Mandela.

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• It does not take a great supernatural heroine or magical hero to save the world.We all save it every day, and we all destroy it -- in our own small ways -- by every choice we make and every tiniest action resulting from that choice.The next time you feel useless and impotent, remember what you are in fact doing in this very moment. And then observe your tiny, seemingly meaningless acts and choices coalesce and cascade together into a powerful positive whole.The world -- if it could -- will thank you for it.And if it does not... well, a true heroine or hero does not require it.

  Vera Nazarian

  Powerful, Hero, Choices

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• We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

  Marianne Williamson

  Love, Inspirational, Life

  Marianne Williamson (2012). “A Course in Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons for Surrendering Your Weight Forever”, p.230, Hay House, Inc

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• The Christian who drinks cannot win his drinking companions to Christ. The girl who dances will never win her dancing boyfriend! You may think to gain favor and influence with the unsaved by joining with them in the lodge, or attending with them the movies, or by smoking or drinking or playing bridge with them, but you cannot! Worldliness means powerlessness! And that means that every Christian who sells out is guilty of the murder of the poor lost souls that go to Hell because he lost his influence.

  John R. Rice

  Girl, Christian, Drinking

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• Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

  Marianne Williamson

  Life, Confidence, Fear

  A Return to Love ch. 7 (1992). Frequently misattributed to Nelson Mandela.

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• Impelled by feelings that were primal yet paradoxically wholly impersonal. Feelings of contempt born of inchoate, unacknowledged fear--civilization's fear of nature, men's fear of women, power's fear of powerlessness. Man's subliminal urge to destroy what he could neither subdue nor deify.

  Arundhati Roy

  Men, Civilization, Feelings

  Arundhati Roy (2002). “The God of Small Things”, p.308, Penguin Books India

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• I'm fairly convinced that the Kingdom of God is for the broken-hearted. You write of 'powerlessness.' Join the club, we are not in control. God is.

  Fred Rogers

  Writing, Broken, Clubs

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• Employee participation programs and employee ownership are important efforts to deal with powerlessness at work.

  Daniel Yankelovich

  Effort, Important, Politics

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• The more we understand what is happening in the world, the more frustrated we often become, for our knowledge leads to feelings of powerlessness. We feel that we are living in a world in which the citizen has become a mere spectator or a forced actor, and that our personal experience is politically useless and our political will a minor illusion.

  C. Wright Mills

  Knowledge, Frustration, Political Will

  C. Wright Mills (2000). “C. Wright Mills: Letters and Autobiographical Writings”, p.184, Univ of California Press

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• Every time I scratch apathy, I find powerlessness beneath it. Humans care, they just don't know what to do about it.

  Quinn Norton

  Apathy, Scratches, Care

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• Simply being with someone is difficult because it asks of us that we share in the other's vulnerability, enter with him or her into the experience of weakness and powerlessness, become part of the uncertainty, and give up control and self-determination.

  Henri Nouwen

  Determination, Giving Up, Self

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• Too many of us seem far too fond of narratives of our powerlessness, maybe because powerlessness lets us off the hook... But we don't need everyone on board; we don't need one magic person in office; we need ourselves. To act. It's the wind, not the weathervanes.

  Rebecca Solnit

  Wind, Office, Magic

  "One magical politician won't stop climate change. It's up to all of us" by Rebecca Solnit, www.theguardian.com. May 15, 2015.

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• Sadomasochism is an institutionalized celebration of dominant/subordinate relationships. And, it prepares us either to accept subordination or to enforce dominance. Even in play, to affirm that the exertion of power over powerlessness is erotic, is empowering, is to set the emotional and social stage for the continuation of that relationship, politically, socially, and economically.

  Audre Lorde

  Emotional, Play, Empowering

  Audre Lorde (2017). “A Burst of Light: And Other Essays”, p.4, Courier Dover Publications

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• Slowly I learn the importance of powerlessness.  I experience it in my own life and I live with it in my work.  The secret is not to be afraid of it—not to run away.  The dying know that we are not God… All they ask is that we do not desert them.

  Sheila Cassidy

  Running, Secret, Dying

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• To be a minister means above all to become powerless, or in more precise terms, to speak with our powerlessness to the condition of powerlessness which is so keenly felt but so seldom expressed by the people of our age.

  Henri Nouwen

  Mean, People, Age

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• Anything that we do to make ourselves feel worthy and safe is a flight from the pain of powerlessness. Every pursuit of external power - every attempt to change the world or a person in order to make yourself feel valuable and safe - is a distraction from the pain of powerlessness.

  Gary Zukav

  Pain, Order, World

  "The One Thing That’s Keeping You From The Life You Want" by Gary Zukav, www.huffingtonpost.com. August 21, 2013.

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• Patriarchy values the hard over the soft; the tough over the tender; punishment, vengeance, and vindictiveness over compassion, negotiation, and reconciliation. The 'hard' qualities are linked to power, success, and masculinity - and exalted. The 'soft' qualities are identified with weakness, powerlessness, and femininity - and denigrated.

  Starhawk

  Compassion, Punishment, Quality

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