“We have a scanty notion of justice and the obligations of rule involve little more than inventing new terrors by which we may cow and control others. Power, I think, is a habit as terrible as the potion I must now sip in order to sustain myself. It feeds upon itself. It is a hungry beast, devouring those who would possess it and those who hate it—devouring even those who own it.”
Book 1, Chapter 5 “The Dreamthief’s Pledge” (p. 183)
The Elric Cycle, The Fortress of the Pearl (1989)
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Michael Moorcock 224
English writer, editor, critic 1939Related quotes

1950s, Give Us the Ballot (1957)
Context: This is no day for the rabble-rouser, whether he be Negro or white. We must realize that we are grappling with the most weighty social problem of this nation, and in grappling with such a complex problem there is no place for misguided emotionalism. We must work passionately and unrelentingly for the goal of freedom, but we must be sure that our hands are clean in the struggle. We must never struggle with falsehood, hate, or malice. We must never become bitter. I know how we feel sometime. There is the danger that those of us who have been forced so long to stand amid the tragic midnight of oppression—those of us who have been trampled over, those of us who have been kicked about—there is the danger that we will become bitter. But if we will become bitter and indulge in hate campaigns, the new order which is emerging will be nothing but a duplication of the old order.
Vol. I; CCCCXXVII (7th Edition, published by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, in 1821)
Lacon
Context: To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it; the pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary.

“The desire for power feeds off itself, growing as it devours.”
“The Finder” (p. 80)
Earthsea Books, Tales from Earthsea (2001)

“We have an obligation to those who died ... to remember.”
Oliver Stone: Satire and Controversy - Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s2gBKApxyk (Oliver Stone reminiscing about Charlie Sheen's comments on Platoon's relevance as message vs entertainment)

“Power calls to those who are hungry for power, and there are hungry idiots everywhere.”
Source: Flesh and Fire (2009), p. 106
Source: Lacon (1820) Vol. I; CCCCXXVII (7th Edition, published by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, in 1821)

1870s, The Unknown Loyal Dead (1871)

Hope, Despair, and Memory (1986)