Power reveals character. These quotes explore authority, influence, control, and the recurring lesson of history that power is dangerous precisely because it feels so good to the person who has it.
“Power is so characteristically calm, that calmness in itself has the aspect of strength.”
“You should see what our Founding Fathers used to say to each other and in the early part of our nation. But what they were able to do, especially in Philadelphia in 1787, four months, they argued about what a House should be, what a Senate should be, the power of the president, the Congress, the Supreme Court. And they had to deal with slavery.”
“Whoever is new to power is always harsh.”
“Never underestimate the power of a simple tool.”
“You only have power over people so long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your power - he's free again.”
“The power of the American system of republicanism lies in its capacity to allow religious belief to be a competing, not a controlling, factor in American life.”
“Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.”
“A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us worthy of using it.”
“The bitterest creature under heaven is the wife who discovers that her husband's bravery is only bravado, that his strength is only a uniform, that his power is but a gun in the hands of a fool.”
“I always tell my kids that as soon as you have a secret, something about you that you are ashamed to have others find out, you have given other people the power to hurt you by exposing you.”
“Nowhere has the political power of coal been more obvious than in presidential campaigns.”
“There will always be vain, obsessive people who want to own rare and extraordinary things whatever the cost there will always be people for whom owning beautiful, dangerous animals brings a sense of power and magic.”
“Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power.”
“I serve a higher power, Jesus Christ. I make no apologies in saying that.”
“Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.”
“The toughest thing about the power of trust is that it's very difficult to build and very easy to destroy. The essence of trust building is to emphasize the similarities between you and the customer.”