“The will to power which always emanates from individuals or from small minorities in society is in fact a most important driving force in history.”

—  Rudolf Rocker , book Nationalism and Culture

Source: Nationalism and Culture (1937), Ch. 1 "The Insufficiency of Economic Materialism"
Context: The will to power which always emanates from individuals or from small minorities in society is in fact a most important driving force in history. The extent of its influence has up to now been regarded far too little, although it has frequently been the determining factor in the shaping of the whole of economic and social life.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The will to power which always emanates from individuals or from small minorities in society is in fact a most importan…" by Rudolf Rocker?
Rudolf Rocker photo
Rudolf Rocker 39
anarcho-syndicalist writer and activist 1873–1958

Related quotes

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo

“In the society where competition is a driving force and motto for every citizen, you can always expect less love emitted from it.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author
Herbert Marcuse photo

“Is this fight against history part of the fight against a dimension of the mind in which centrifugal faculties and forces might develop—faculties and forces that might hinder the total coordination of the individual with the society? Remembrance of the Fast may give rise to dangerous insights, and the established society seems to be apprehensive of the subversive contents of memory. Remembrance is a mode of dissociation from the given facts, a mode of “mediation” which breaks, for short moments, the omnipresent power of the given facts. Memory recalls the terror and the hope that passed. Both come to life again”

Herbert Marcuse book One-Dimensional Man

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), p. 98

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“The collective power of the State can help; but it is the individual’s own power of self-help which is most important.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)

“I think that the West is the most powerful reality in the history of this country. It's always had a power, a presence, an attraction that differentiated it from the rest of the United States. Whether the West was a place to be conquered, or the West as it is today, a place to be protected and nurtured. It is the regenerative force of America.”

J. S. Holliday (1924–2006) American historian

The West (1996)

Anand Gandhi photo

“The promise of survival beyond individual death or dispersion appeals to the most primal driving force of existence.”

Anand Gandhi (1980) Indian film director

"There is no free will, but you have a choice! (And the role of memes in choice-creation)" in Handbags and Lingo (3 November 2013) http://anand.memesyslab.com/2013/11/there-is-no-free-will-but-you-have.html<!-- INKTalks -->
Context: The promise of survival beyond individual death or dispersion appeals to the most primal driving force of existence. Promises of transcendence have evolved out of the thriving desire to ward off the inevitable threat of individual death. Most systems propose a more or less perfect immortality – one where memories, hopes, desires, knowledge and even experiences survive the death of the physical body. An engagement and acceptance of this meme makes death particularly irrelevant. The upholding of the promise at the cost of individual sacrifice becomes acceptable. Individual sacrifices even become necessary in validating the promise.

Francis Escudero photo

“It is accepted fact that the world has been moving from an economy of goods to an economy of knowledge. And knowledge is the single most important resource to any advanced society.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Speech: The Socio-Economic Peace Program of Senator Francis Escudero

“Galaxies are observed to be simple systems following laws that result from scale-invariant dynamics which do not emanate from the haphazard merging history of halos of exotic dark matter.”

Pavel Kroupa (1963) Australian astrophysicist

Do astronomical data contradict the existence of dynamically relevant cold or dark matter? (seminar talk at Columbia U. Astronomy Department), Pavel Kroupa, 16 Oct. 2014 http://www.astro.columbia.edu/event?eid=185,

“The most powerful force in all history are the teachings of that man from Galilee, who taught us to live with one another, meaning something to each other.”

Henry Schriver (1914–2011) American politician

Cows, Kids, and Co-ops

Honoré de Balzac photo

“A grocer is drawn to his business by an attracting force quite equal to the repelling force which drives artists away from it.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

Source: A Bachelor's Establishment (1842), Ch. I.
Context: A grocer is drawn to his business by an attracting force quite equal to the repelling force which drives artists away from it. We do not sufficiently study the social potentialities which make up the various vocations of life. It would be interesting to know what determines one man to be a stationer rather than a baker; since, in our day, sons are not compelled to follow the calling of their fathers, as they were among the Egyptians.

Irvin D. Yalom photo

“What an existential approach is about is positing that our bad feelings, our dysphoria, our despair, our anxiety emanates not only from our own life history and all the traumas we may have had in the past, and not only from the figures that we have introjected — many of these figures being unloving, or uncaring, or neurotic on their own parts — and emanates not only from our current life crises, but it emanates also, also, from our confrontation with the existential facts of life, with our confrontation with the human condition.”

Irvin D. Yalom (1931) American psychotherapist and writer

Live Case Consultation, Psychotherapy.net

Related topics