POWER

Related Subjects: Ability, Advantage, Authority, Command, Dictatorship, Electricity, Energy, Force, Greatness, Influence, Machinery, Steam, Strength, Violence

1. The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim's sympathies.—HENRY ADAMS, The Education of Henry Adams
   

2. Power when wielded by abnormal energy is the most serious of facts.—HENRY ADAMS, The Education of Henry Adams
   

3. Who holds a power but newly gained is ever stern of mood.—AESCHYLUS, Prometheus Bound
   

4. Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can. And it is not as if we were the first to make this law, or to act upon it; we found it existing before, and shall leave it to exist forever after us ; all we do is to make use of it, knowing that you and everybody else, having the same power as we have, would do the same as we do.—Athenian envoys, upon the destruction of Melos. Durant: Life of Greece
   

5. There are never wanting some persons of violent and undertaking natures, who, so they may have power and business, will take it at any cost.—BACON
   

6. The powers that be are ordained of God.—Bible, Romans 13:1
   

7. The arts of power and its minions are the same in all countries and in all ages. It marks its victim; denounces it; and excites the public odium and the public hatred, to conceal its own abuses and encroachments.—HENRY CLAY
   

8. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad.—MANDELL CREIGHTON
   

9. The alleged power to charm down insanity, or ferocity in beasts, is a power behind the eye.—EMERSON, Conduct of Life
   

10. Coal, iron and steam are the three cooperative powers of modern civilization.—J. W. HANSON, Wonders of the 19th Century
    

11. The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it.—MACAULAY, Review of Aikin's Life of Addison
    

12. Beware of the man who rises to power From one suspender.—EDGAR LEE MASTERS, Spoon River Anthology
    

13. I believe that . . . if a people wish to live they should develop a will to power, otherwise they vegetate, live miserably and become prey to a stronger people, in whom this will to power is developed to a higher degree.—MUSSOLINI
    

14. Power, like a desolating pestilence,
    Pollutes whate'er it touches.—SHELLEY, Queen Mab
    

15. The awful shadow of some unseen Power
    Floats tho' unseen amongst us.—SHELLEY, Hymn to Intellectual Beauty
    

16. What do I care about the law? Haven't I got the power?—CORNELIUS VANDERBILT
    

17. Because the good old rule
    Sufficeth them, the simple plan,
    That they should take, who have the power,
    And they should keep who can.—WORDSWORTH, Rob Roy's Grave