Quotes about Power

How often it happens, that, when a catastrophe occurs, if we inquire into the cause we find it originated through the obstinacy of one with little ability, but having full faith in his own powers.

The social edifice of the past rests on three columns,—the priest, the king, and the hangman.

True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which is deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals.

She knew that there were all kinds of ways to make a conquest and that one of the surest roads to a woman's genitals was through her sadness.

Aren't we living in a world where heedless men only desire decapitated women?

Kitsch is the aesthetic ideal of all politicians and all political parties and movements. Those of us who live in a society where various political tendencies exist side by side and competing influences cancel or limit one another can manage more or less to escape the kitsch inquisition: the individual can preserve his individuality; the artist can create unusual works. But whenever a single political movement corners power, we find ourselves in the realm of totalitarian kitsch.

people do need some commandment to rule over them in our century, when god's ten have been virtually forgotten! the whole moral structure of our time rests on the eleventh commandment; and the journalist came to realize that thanks to a mysterious provision of history he is to become its administrator, gaining a power undreamed of by a hemingway or an orwell.

Internal imperatives are all the more powerful and therefore all the more of an inducement to revolt.

Some ideas have the force of a bomb exploding.

Metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with.

You know,' he went on, 'novels are the fruit of the human illusion that we can understand our fellow man. But what do we know about each other?' 'Nothing,' said Bibi. 'True,' said Joujou. The professor of philosophy acquiesced with a nod of the head. 'The only thing we can do,' said Banaka, 'is to give an account of our own selves. Anything else is an abuse of power. Anything else is a lie.

When the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave.