Quotes about Power

You are not compelled to form any opinion about this matter before you, nor to disturb your peace of mind at all. Things in themselves have no power to extort a verdict from you.

In communities and individuals alike, excessive freedom topples over into excessive slavery. Extreme freedom produces a tyrant, along with the extremely harsh and evil slavery that goes with him.

These people who govern us should not be so carried away by their own political power that they turn away from peace, but neither should they embrace a peace that is dishonorable.

When power is scarce, a little of it is tempting.

You might even provide a Heaven for them. We need You for that. Hell we can make for ourselves.

Ill take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew it meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before. You do that first, in your head, and then you make it real. So thats how they do it, I thought. I seemed never to have known that before.

Things written down can cause a great deal of harm. All too often, people don't consider that.

Then she let him lick her fingers for her. He ran his tongue around the small ovals of her nails. This was the closest she could get to him without becoming food: she was in him, or part of her was in part of him. Sex was the other way around: While that was going on, he was in her. I'll make you mine, lovers said in old books. They never said, I'll make you me.

Wars happen because the ones who start them think they can win.

Maybe it's about who can do what to whom and can be forgiven for it. Never tell me it amounts to the same thing.

I want my father to be just my father, the way he has always been, not a separate person with an earlier, mythological life of his own. Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.

Tell me, Elly Kleinman, why do men feel threatened by women?