“Every ruler wants to maintain the status quo.”

Interlude “Summer, 1818” (p. 170)
The Stress of Her Regard (1989)

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 "Every ruler wants to maintain the status quo." by Tim Powers?
Tim Powers photo
Tim Powers 63
American writer 1952

Related quotes

U.G. Krishnamurti photo

“Society or culture or whatever you might want to call it, has created us all solely and wholly for the purpose of maintaining its continuity and status quo.”

U.G. Krishnamurti (1918–2007) Indian philosopher

Source: Thought is Your Enemy (1990), Chapter II: Throw Away Your Crutches

Jay Samit photo

“Every threat to the status quo is an opportunity in disguise.”

Jay Samit (1961) American businessman

Source: Disrupt You! (2015), p.132

“Freedom as a concept sides with those who are struggling for theirs, whereas nonviolence as a concept sides with the enforcers of normality and the rulers of the status quo.”

Peter Gelderloos (1982) American anarchist

Source: "The Failure of Nonviolence" (2013) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-the-failure-of-nonviolence, Chapter 1. Violence Doesn't Exist

John F. Kennedy photo

“Their pledge is a pledge to the status quo — and today there can be no status quo.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Address Accepting the Democratic Party Nomination for the Presidency of the United States — Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles (15 July 1960) http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx<!-- Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project -->
1960
Context: Their platform, made up of left-over Democratic planks, has the courage of our old convictions. Their pledge is a pledge to the status quo — and today there can be no status quo.

Niccolo Machiavelli photo

“I am not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it.”

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Italian politician, Writer and Author

This is a quote by Newt Gingrich, first appearing in an article in the Los Angeles Times in 1991. http://articles.latimes.com/1991-08-25/magazine/tm-2004_1_newt-gingrich/2
Misattributed

David Ben-Gurion photo

“To maintain the status quo will not do. We have set up a dynamic State, bent upon creation and reform, building and expansion.”

David Ben-Gurion (1886–1973) Israeli politician, Zionist leader, prime minister of Israel

Rebirth and Destiny of Israel (1954), p. 419; a portion of this paragraph has sometimes been misquoted as: "To maintain the status quo will not do. We have to set up a dynamic state bent upon expansion."
Context: Our code must be framed to speed the absorption of immigrants into our economy, culture and society; to fuse the returning tribes into a homogeneous national and cultural unit; to forward our physical and moral healing and the cleansing of our lives from the trivia and dross which gathered upon us in dependence and exile. To maintain the status quo will not do. We have set up a dynamic State, bent upon creation and reform, building and expansion. Laws which lag behind development, merely a digest of experience and the lessons of the past, are useless to us. We need to anticipate the character of the times, discern embryonic forms emergent or renewed, and clear the path for circumstantial change.

“Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.”

Laurence J. Peter (1919–1990) Canadian eductor

Source: Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1977), p. 83

George Carlin photo

“The status quo sucks.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian
Jonas Salk photo
Paulo Freire photo

“Those who are served by the present limit-situation regard the untested feasibility as a threatening limit-situation which must not be allowed to materialize, and act to maintain the status quo.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 3, on the oppressive status quo

Related topics