“Like so many fanatics, he possessed an appalling streak of timidity and terror which feared all that was not absolutely familiar. As his power increased, he would doubtless attempt to destroy anything that made him anxious.”
Book 2, Chapter 7 “A Mechanical Man” (p. 384)
The Steel Tsar (1981)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Michael Moorcock 224
English writer, editor, critic 1939Related quotes
About Adolf Hitler as quoted in "Diary of a Man in Despair", Fritz Percy Reck-Malleczewen - History (1970) p. 95.
Essay on the Principle of Population (1798; rev. through 1826)
Letter to Sophie Brzeska-Savage Messiah By H S (Jim) Ede Heinimann (1931)
“A name made great is a name destroyed. He who does not increase his knowledge decreases it.”
1:13
Pirkei Avot
“Love hath so long possessed me for his own
And made his lordship so familiar.”
Sì lungiamente m'ha tenuto Amore
e costumato a la sua segnoria
Source: La Vita Nuova (1293), Chapter XXIV
Book IV, 4.59-[2]; "Nobody is driven into war by ignorance, and no one who thinks that he will gain anything from it is deterred by fear." ( trans. http://www.classicpersuasion.org/pw/thucydides/thucydides-passages.php?pleaseget=4.59-64 Benjamin Jowett)
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book IV
“If a man would be righteous, let him depart from a court. Virtue is incompatible with absolute power. He who is ashamed to commit cruelty must always fear it.”
Exeat aula
qui volt esse pius. Virtus et summa potestas
non coeunt; semper metuet quem saeva pudebunt.
Book VIII, line 493 (tr. J. D. Duff).
Pharsalia
Christianity and Power Politics (1936)
Context: In the simple and decadent individualism of the Oxford group movement there is no understanding of the fact that the man of power is always to a certain degree an anti-Christ. "All power," said Lord Acton with cynical realism, "corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely." If the man of power were to take a message of absolute honesty and absolute love seriously he would lose his power, or would divest himself of it. This is not to imply that the world can get along without power and that it is not preferable that men of conscience should wield it rather than scoundrels. But if men of power had not only conscience but also something of the gospel's insight into the intricacies of social sin in the world, they would know that they could never extricate themselves completely from the sinfulness of power, even while they were wielding it ostensibly for the common good. (Chapter 29: "Hitler and Buchman")
Speech in the House of Commons (24 April 1844), referring to Lord Stanley; compare: "The brilliant chief, irregularly great, / Frank, haughty, rash,—the Rupert of debate!", Edward Bulwer-Lytton, The New Timon (1846), Part i.
1840s