Source: The Jewels of Aptor (1962), Chapter X (p. 133)
Context: A lesson which history should have taught us thousands of years ago was finally driven home. No man can wield absolute power over other men and still retain his own mind. For no matter how good his intentions are when he takes up the power, his alternate reason is that freedom, the freedom of other people and ultimately his own, terrifies him. Only a man afraid of freedom would want this power, who could conceive of wielding it. And that fear of freedom will turn him into a slave of this power.
“To the excessively fearful the chief characteristic of power is its arbitrariness. Man had to gain enormously in confidence before he could conceive an all-powerful God who obeys his own laws.”
Section 163
Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)
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Eric Hoffer 240
American philosopher 1898–1983Related quotes
The Forgotten Man and Other Essays (corrected edition), “The Forgotten Man” 1883 http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/sumner-the-forgotten-man-and-other-essays-corrected-edition?q=Civil+liberty+is+the+status#Sumner_1225_701.
XIII. How things eternal are said to be made.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Context: Those who believe in the destruction of the world, either deny the existence of the Gods, or, while admitting it, deny God's power.
Therefore he who makes all things by his own power makes all things subsist together with himself. And since his power is the greatest power he must needs be the maker not only of men and animals, but of Gods, men, and spirits. And the further removed the first God is from our nature, the more powers there must be between us and him. For all things that are very far apart have many intermediate points between them.
“He had gained all the power he had dreamed of then—and had not known a moment of peace since.”
Source: She Is the Darkness (1997), Chapter 5 (p. 288)
“Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.”
Source: The Dark Is Rising (1965-1977), Silver on the Tree (1977), Chapter 4 “Midsummer Day” (p. 54)