Quotes about Power

Pero hoy la guerra ya no es guerra. Ya no es el hombre quien cuenta, la máquina lo es todo.

It is not, however, only the word, it is also the thing, in all its infinite complexity, that he [Kafka] articulates with unrivaled courage and clarity. For, since he fears power in any form, since the real aim of his life is to withdraw from it, in whatever form it may appear, he detects it, identifies it, names it, and creates figures of it in every instance where others would accept it as being nothing out of the ordinary.

The touch to which one resigns oneself because all resistance appears hopeless — and particularly so as regards the future — has, in our society, become the arrest . The feel of the hand of authority on his shoulder is usually enough to make a man give himself up without having to be actually seized. He cowers and goes quietly.

Romani su klinovi koje neki glumac što piše zabija u ?vrstu li?nost svojih ?italaca. Što bol?e prora?una klin i otpor, to ?e ta li?nost ostati raspolu?enija. Trebalo bi da država zabrani romane.

If gazelles had a religion and the lion was their god they could, in order to appease his appetite, voluntarily surrender one of their number to him. This is exactly what happens among men: religious sacrifice springs from a state of crowd fear. It serves to halt the pursuit and, for a while, stil the hunger of the hostile power.

He explained to me with great insistence that every question posessed a power that did not lie in the answer.

For the good of all, I say: Be careful, the brutality of the world must not be more powerful or attractive than love and friendship.

Even torture that is only verbal reinforce the power of the torturer: The prisoner's imagination leads him to dread the next round of interrogations. And when it happens, the feeling of inferiority becomes more acute; it bores into the brain, and the cultural and psychological defenses that surround the brain disintegrate and vanish. The ego is dissolved.

Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds.

The individual is not a cog in a monstrous machine; it is within his power to modify the very laws which imprison him and the very relationship maintained by the Judge with the accused and witnesses. If it is true, as the Baal Shem says, that it is possible for man to hide the light of dawn emanating from the forest simply by shielding his eyes with his hands, still it is no less true that he can rediscover it by merely moving his hands.

I am not so naïve as to believe that this slim volume will change the course of history or shake the conscience of the world. Books no longer have the power they once did. Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.

We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear. All is grace. If the Almighty is the Almighty, the last word for each of us belongs to him.