Quotes about Power

Others, with softer smiles, and subtler art, Can sap the principles, or taint the heart; With more address a lover's note convey, Or bribe a virgin's innocence away. Well may they rise, while I, whose rustic tongue Ne'er knew to puzzle right, or varnish wrong, Spurned as a beggar, dreaded as a spy, Live unregarded, unlamented die.   For

The Roman tyrant was content to be hated, if he was but feared; and there are thousands of the readers of romances willing to be thought wicked, if they may be allowed to be wits.

How small of all that human hearts endure That part which laws or kings can cuse or cure!

Wrong. Christ was not our substitute but our representative, and since His saving passion was representative, it doesn't exempt us from suffering but rather endows our suffering with divine power and redemptive value.

Thus, far from thinking that works produced by man's own talent and energy are in opposition to God's power, and that the rational creature exists as a kind of rival to the Creator, Christians are convinced that the triumphs of the human race are a sign of God's grace and the flowering of His own mysterious design.

Thus, for Aquinas, the New Law goes beyond the Sermon on the Mount and the other teachings of Jesus. It is nothing less than divine grace—divine life and power. Grace is the New Law that enables us to keep the commandments in a way that we as children of Adam couldn't on our own.

Jesus looked at them and said to them, With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.

Thus, the founder of Opus Dei, though he was a priest, did not seek to gather power to the clergy. In fact, he wanted the Catholic laity to discover their own dignity and assume the responsibilities that came with baptism.

The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people's hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice

Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.

Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.

Power always thinks... that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws.