Quotes about power
page 89

“Enterprises of the highest importance to our moral and material well-being unite us and offer ample employment of our best powers. Let all our people, leaving behind them the battlefields of dead issues, move forward and in their strength of liberty and the restored Union win the grander victories of peace.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1880s, Inaugural address (1881)

People, Peace, Victory, Dead

“But what of the voice and judgment of conscience? The difficulty is that we have a conscience behind our conscience, an intellectual one behind the moral. … We can see quite well that our opinions of what is noble and good, our moral valuations, are powerful levers where action is concerned; but we must begin by refining these opinions and independently creating for ourselves new tables of values.”

Georg Brandes (1842–1927) Danish literature critic and scholar

Source: An Essay on Aristocratic Radicalism (1889), pp. 25-26

“Everyone who came in contact with Xavier seems to have agreed that he was a saint. Men might disagree with him; but in all the extensive records there is not a single word that runs contrary to the general verdict as to his saintliness. There are many references to the long hours that he spent in prayer and in rapt contemplation of his Lord. He disclaimed anything in the way of miraculous powers; in his devotions there was nothing that could be called mystical in any strict sense of that term. He seems to have followed the broad lines of medieval devotional practice, profoundly influenced by the Spiritual Exercises of his master Ignatius. Xavier, like Ignatius, was in all things a medieval man, untouched by any of the new currents of thought in theology or in the daily affairs of life. It is probable that, in the ten years of his sojourn in the East, he never possessed a Bible or even a New Testament. Apart from his breviary and his missal, his sole companion seems to have been the work of Marcus Marulus, Opus de religiose vivendi institutione, a thick book of 680 pages, published at Cologne in 1531. He seems rarely to have based his discourses directly on the Bible…”

Francis Xavier (1506–1552) Navarrese Basque Roman Catholic saint and missionary

Neill, S. (2004). A history of Christianity in India: The beginning to AD 1707. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Life, Men, Books, Way

“There was always something about Creative Commons and its name that bugged me, too. The name sounds like a variation of the once-powerful Common Cause political-action committee. A ring of days gone by — nostalgia. All I see here is making the very easy and simple U. S. copyright laws more complex for no apparent reason, except maybe as a protest.”

John C. Dvorak (1952) US journalist and radio broadcaster

"Creative Commons Humbug" in PC Magazine (18 July 2005) http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1838249,00.asp 2000s

Law, Nostalgia

“Be it understood, then, that what we have to do, as students of phenomenology, is simply to open our mental eyes and look well at the phenomenon and say what are the characteristics that are never wanting in it, whether that phenomenon be something that outward experience forces upon our attention, or whether it be the wildest of dreams, or whether it be the most abstract and general of the conclusions of science.
The faculties which we must endeavor to gather for this work are three. The first and foremost is that rare faculty, the faculty of seeing what stares one in the face, just as it presents itself, unreplaced by any interpretation, unsophisticated by any allowance for this or for that supposed modifying circumstance. This is the faculty of the artist who sees for example the apparent colors of nature as they appear. When the ground is covered by snow on which the sun shines brightly except where shadows fall, if you ask any ordinary man what its color appears to be, he will tell you white, pure white, whiter in the sunlight, a little greyish in the shadow. But that is not what is before his eyes that he is describing; it is his theory of what ought to be seen. The artist will tell him that the shadows are not grey but a dull blue and that the snow in the sunshine is of a rich yellow. That artist's observational power is what is most wanted in the study of phenomenology. The second faculty we must strive to arm ourselves with is a resolute discrimination which fastens itself like a bulldog upon the particular feature that we are studying, follows it wherever it may lurk, and detects it beneath all its disguises. The third faculty we shall need is the generalizing power of the mathematician who produces the abstract formula that comprehends the very essence of the feature under examination purified from all admixture of extraneous and irrelevant accompaniments.”

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist

Lecture II : The Universal Categories, § 1 : Presentness, CP 5.41 - 42
Pragmatism and Pragmaticism (1903)

Dreams, Color, Nature, Study

“We are born to inquire after truth; it belongs to a greater power to possess it. It is not, as Democritus said, hid in the bottom of the deeps, but rather elevated to an infinite height in the divine knowledge.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book III, Ch. 8. Of the Art of Conversation
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Truth, Knowledge

“Léon Bloy, despite his many impressive qualities.. what a hater he was! - wild and implacable, and what power of abuse! Strange don't you think that Ernst Jünger should comment at length in his war-diaries how irresistibly Bloy reminded him of Hitler in his paroxysms of rage and his foul and ribald tongue?.. Yet Bloy was undoubtedly a man with great gifts of vision and perception, and charity, too - even in the midst of his orgies of hatred. And much of what he writes about Our Lady of La Salette in his La Salette book is very fine and often goes straight to one's heart…”

Ida Friederike Görres (1901–1971) Austrian writer and noble

Broken Lights Letters 1951-59.

War, Books, Thinking, Rage

“I'm not trying to sign people up to a creed, I'm much more interested in the people that disagree. These ideas are powerful but this isn't mysticism in the ordinary sense to be protected by mumblings about faith and all that. This is the real thing.”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

http://www.lysergia.com/FeedYourHead/McKenna/McKenna_iDmag1992Aug.jpg i-D magazine interview (1996)

People, Faith, Idea, Sense

“Only the force of American arms, or the extremely credible threat of that force, can bring a fresh face to power.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Jan. 14, 2003 http://www.slate.com/id/2076712/: On Iraq 2000s, 2003

“The papists abuse this text, not only to the end they may commend feigned miracles, which they say are done at the graves of martyrs, but also that they may try and sell us their relics. Why, say thy, shall not the grave, or garment, or the touching of the bones of Peter have as much power to heal, as his shadow had?”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Commentary on Acts CR 48 104; as quoted in War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin by Carlos M. N. Eire p.222

“In the first place, the meaning of the Constitution never varies. It means today exactly what it meant on the day of its adoption. To hold otherwise would destroy the judicial character of the Supreme Court, and make the continuance of our "unalienable" rights completely uncertain. This has been forcibly stated in South Carolina vs. United States, 199 U. S., at 448: "The Constitution is a written instrument. As such its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when adopted it means now. * * * Those things which are within its grants of power, when made, are still within them, and those things not within remain still excluded. * * * Any other rule of construction, would abrogate the judicial character of this Court, and make it the mere reflex of the popular opinion or passion of the day."”

George Howard Earle, Jr. (1856–1928) American lawyer

From Is Capital Income? (1921) by George H. Earle, Jr.

Passion

“There is no wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest numbers of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest, who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.”

John Ruskin book Unto This Last

Essay IV: "Ad Valorem," section 77.
Unto This Last (1860)

Love, Life, Happiness, Help

“As opposed to the incoherent spectacle of the world, the real is what is expected, what is obtained and what is discovered by our own movement. It is what is sensed as being within our own power and always responsive to our action.”

Alain (1868–1951) French philosopher

Book I, ch. 3
The Gods (1934)

World, Sense

“But as a matter of fact the idea of an integrated Europe is historically looking backward, and not forward. The noble Viscount was looking at the Holy Roman Empire. We never belonged to the Holy Roman Empire, and we never belonged to the reactionary organisation after 1815. We have always looked outward, out to the New World; and to-day we look out to the New World, and to Asia and Africa. I think that integration with Europe is a step backward. By all means let us get the greatest possible agreement between the various continents, but I am afraid that if we join the Common Market we shall be joining not an outward-looking organisation, but an inward-looking organisation. I think that Germany, for instance, which has probably the most powerful influence in the organisation, will not escape from looking at what she thought she was going to gain, and what she has lost. I do not think we have a new look there. I think that by marrying into Europe we are marrying a whole family of ancient prejudices and ancient troubles, and I would much rather see an Atlantic organisation. I would much rather work for the world organisation.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1962/nov/08/britain-and-the-common-market in the House of Lords on the British application to join the Common Market (8 November 1962). 1960s

World, Family, Idea, Thinking

“All power, as well as all the impotence of democracy is based on faith”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

The History of Rome

Faith, Democracy

“Do not believe for an instant that the world's conspiring elite in every nation have so much as a serious quarrel among them. They have just one object: control through tribute. Your slavery, through tribute, and mine… Behind this attack are the self-styled elite, secure in their own power and riches… To be effective we must direct our attacks on the real criminals, the wealthy, and powerful and secret elite of all the world - the conspirators laboring day and night to enslave us.”

Taylor Caldwell book Captains and the Kings

Captains and the Kings (1974)
1970s-

Secret, World, Night

“Talent alone is not enough. In the end, Guardian, it is desire that creates a master vintner, makes him into a Vineart. A passion, not for power, or strength, but for the grapes themselves. Anything else leads to ruin.”

Laura Anne Gilman book Flesh and Fire

Source: Flesh and Fire (2009), pp. 57-58

Passion

“De Bellaigue is at pains to portray Mossadegh as — in the words of the jacket copy — “one of the first liberals of the Middle East, a man whose conception of liberty was as sophisticated as any in Europe or America.” But the trouble is, there is nothing in Mossadegh’s career — spanning half a century, as provincial governor, cabinet minister, and finally prime minister — to portray him as even remotely a lover of liberty. De Bellaigue quotes Mossadegh as saying that a trusted leader is “that person whose every word is accepted and followed by the people.” To which de Bellaigue adds: “His understanding of democracy would always be coloured by traditional ideas of Muslim leadership, whereby the community chooses a man of outstanding virtue and follows him wherever he takes them.” Word for word, that could have been the late Ayatollah Khomeini’s definition of a true leader. Mossadegh also made a habit of appearing in his street meetings with a copy of the Koran in hand. According to de Bellaigue, Mossadegh liked to say that “anyone forgetting Islam is base and dishonourable, and should be killed.” During his premiership, Mossadegh demonstrated his dictatorial tendency to the full: Not once did he hold a full meeting of the council of ministers, ignoring the constitutional rule of collective responsibility. He dissolved the senate, the second chamber of the Iranian parliament, and shut down the Majlis, the lower house. He suspended a general election before all the seats had been decided and chose to rule with absolute power. He disbanded the high council of national currency and dismissed the supreme court. During much of his tenure, Tehran lived under a curfew while hundreds of his opponents were imprisoned. Toward the end of his premiership, almost all of his friends and allies had broken with him. Some even wrote to the secretary general of the United Nations to intervene to end Mossadegh’s dictatorship. But was Mossadegh a man of the people, as de Bellaigue portrays him? Again, the author’s own account provides a different picture. A landowning prince and the great-great-grandson of a Qajar king, Mossadegh belonged to the so-called thousand families who owned Iran. He and all his children were able to undertake expensive studies in Switzerland and France. The children had French nannies and, when they fell sick, were sent to Paris or Geneva for treatment. (De Bellaigue even insinuates that Mossadegh might have had a French sweetheart, although that is improbable.) On the one occasion when Mossadegh was sent to internal exile, he took with him a whole retinue, including his cook… As a model of patriotism, too, Mossadegh is unconvincing. According to his own memoirs, at the end of his law studies in Switzerland, he had decided to stay there and acquire Swiss citizenship. He changed his mind when he was told that he would have to wait ten years for that privilege. At the same time, Farmanfarma secured a “good post” for him in Iran, tempting him back home.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

"Myths of Mossadegh" https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/302213/myths-mossadegh/page/0/1, National Review (June 25, 2012).

Pain, Children, People, Family

“I am often astonished at well-meaning, spiritual people who advocate beaming light toward world leaders, who scold activists for expressing anger toward authorities or police, who define compassion as loving the enemy — but somehow lose sight of the need to love our friends, our allies, and those who suffer at the hands of the perpetrators. I really don't feel much call to beam love and light at Bush or Cheney or the directors of the International Monetary Fund. Whether or not they suffer from lack of love is beyond me. From my perspective, they suffer from an excess of power, and I feel called to take it away from them. Because I do love the child in Iraq, the woman in the favela, the eighteen-year-old recruit to the Marines who never dreamed he was signing up to bomb civilians. I can't love them, or myself and my community, effectively if I can't articulate the real differences in interests and agendas between "us" and "them"”

Starhawk (1951) American author, activist and Neopagan

between those who have too little social power and those who have too much.
Toward an Activist Spirituality (2003)

Love, People, World, Dreams

“[In air power] so far from being half as strong again as Germany, so far from making up lee-way, we are already greatly inferior in numbers and falling further and further behind every month. … No doubt it is not popular to say these things, but I am accustomed to abuse and I expect to have a great deal more of it before I have finished. Somebody has to state the truth. There ought to be a few members of the House of Commons who are in a sufficiently independent position to confront both Ministers and electors with unpalatable truths. We do not wish our ancient freedom and the decent tolerant civilisation we have preserved in this island to hang upon a rotten thread.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the City Carlton Club (26 September 1935), quoted in Martin Gilbert, The Churchill Documents, Volume 12: The Wilderness Years, 1929–1935 (Michigan: Hillsdale Press, 2012), p. 1268
The 1930s

Truth, Way, Freedom, Strong

“There are two ways of making money. The first is what most of us do: work. That means tapping into our knowledge and know-how (our “human capital” in economic terms) to create something new, whether that’s a takeout app, a wedding cake, a stylish updo, or a perfectly poured pint. To work is to create. Ergo, to work is to create new wealth.But there is also a second way to make money. That’s the rentier way: by leveraging control over something that already exists, such as land, knowledge, or money, to increase your wealth. You produce nothing, yet profit nonetheless. By definition, the rentier makes his living at others’ expense, using his power to claim economic benefit.”

Rutger Bregman (1988) Dutch journalist, writer and historian

"No, wealth isn’t created at the top. It is merely devoured there"

Money, Way, Knowledge, Wedding

“Especially in its opening scenes, Ballast is "slower" and "quieter" than we usually expect. You know what? So is life, most of the time. We don't wake up and immediately start engaging with plot points. But Ballast inexorably grows and deepens and gathers power and absorbs us. I always say I hardly ever cry at sad films, but I sometimes do, just a little, at films about good people.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/ballast-2008 of Ballast (29 October 2008) Reviews, Four star reviews

Life, People, Sadness, Time

“The universe of all things that exist may be understood as a universe of systems where a system is defined as any set of related and interacting elements. This concept is primitive and powerful and has been used increasingly over the last half-century to organize knowledge in virtually all domains of interest to investigators. As human inventions and social interactions grow more complex, general conceptual frameworks that integrate knowledge among different disciplines studying those emerging systems grow more important. Living systems theory (LST) instructs integrative research among biological and social sciences and related academic disciplines.”

James Grier Miller (1916–2002) biologist

G. A. Swanson and James Grier Miller (2013) " Living Systems Theory http://www.eolss.net/Sample-Chapters/C02/E6-46-01-03.pdf" in Systems Science and Cybernetics. Vol I.

Knowledge, Study, Universe, Science

“Can women make use of men's vulnerability not to marry but instead to destroy male power?”

Andrea Dworkin book Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation

Source: Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation (2000), p. 248.

Women, Men

“There are particular movements in particular epochs in which the Divine Force manifests itself with supreme power shattering all human calculations, making a mock of the prudence of the careful statesman and the scheming politician, falsifying the prognostications of the scientific analyser and advancing with a vehemence and velocity which is obviously the manifestation of a higher than human force. The intellectual man afterwards tries to trace the reasons for the movement and lay bare the forces that made it possible, but at the time he is utterly at fault, his wisdom is falsified at every step and his science serves him not. These are the times when we say God is in the movement, He is its leader and it must fulfil itself however impossible it may be for man to see the means by which it will succeed.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

17 July 1909
India's Rebirth

Wisdom, God, Science, Time

“We wanted tonight to be a shift of power, and to take the trophy back to Highbury.”

Arsène Wenger (1949) French footballer and manager

Manchester United 0-1 Arsenal (8 May 2002) http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/1976435.stm Interviews

“The awful bottom line, of course, is that if you’re going to rule the world, you have to have absolute power, and everybody knows what absolute power does.”

Kage Baker book Sky Coyote

Source: Sky Coyote (1999), Chapter 26 (p. 213)

World

“When, in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1770s, Declaration of Independence (1776)

God, People, Law, Nature

“I find it difficult to take these psycho-analysts at all seriously when they try to scrutinise spiritual experience by the flicker of their torch-lights,'yet perhaps one ought to, for half-knowledge is a powerful thing and can be a great obstacle to the coming in front of the true Truth. This new psychology looks to me very much like children learning some summary and not very adequate alphabet, exulting in putting their a-b-c-d of the subconscient and the mysterious underground super-ego together and imagining that their first book of obscure beginnings (c-a-t cat, t-r-e-e tree) is the very heart of the real knowledge. They look from down up and explain the higher lights by the lower obscurities; but the foundation of these things is above and not below, upari budhna esam [Rig-Veda, 1.24.7]. The superconscient, not the subconscient, is the true foundation of things. The significance of the lotus is not to be found by analysing the secrets of the mud from which it grows here; its secret is to be found in the heavenly archetype of the lotus that blooms for ever in the Light above. The self-chosen field of these psychologists is besides poor, dark and limited; you must know the whole before you can know the part and the highest before you can truly understand the lowest. That is the promise of the greater psychology awaiting its hour before which these poor gropings will disappear and come to nothing…. Wanton waste, careless spoiling of physical things in an incredibly short time, loose disorder, misuse of service and materials due either to vital grasping or to tamasic inertia are baneful to prosperity and tend to drive away or discourage the Wealth-Power. These things have long been rampant in the society and, if that continues, an increase in our means might well mean a proportionate increase in the wastage and disorder and neutralise the material advantage. This must be remedied if there is to be any sound progress…. Asceticism for its own sake is not the ideal of this yoga, but self-control in the vital and right order in the material are a very important part of it… and even an ascetic discipline is better for our purpose than a loose absence of true control. Mastery of the material does not mean having plenty and profusely throwing it out or spoiling it as fast as it comes or faster. Mastery implies in it the right and careful utilisation of things and also a self-control in their use…. There is a consciousness in [things], a life which is not the life and consciousness of man and animal which we know, but still secret and real. That is why we must have a respect for physical things and use them rightly, not misuse and waste, ill-treat or handle with a careless roughness. This feeling of all being consciousness or alive comes when our own physical consciousness'and not the mind only'awakes out of its obscurity and becomes aware of the One in all things, the Divine everywhere.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Undated
India's Rebirth

Life, Children, Truth, Secret

Harold Innis book Empire and Communications

From the 2007 Voyageur Classics edition, pp. 19-20.
Empire and Communications (1950)

People, Health

“Under central planning neither planners, managers, nor workers had incentives to promote the social economic interest. Nor did impeding markets for final goods to the planning system enfranchise consumers in meaningful ways. But central planning would have been incompatible with economic democracy even if it had overcome its information and incentive liabilities. And the truth is that it survived as long as it did only because it was propped up by unprecedented totalitarian political power.”

Robin Hahnel (1946) American economist

Robin Hahnel, The ABC's of Political Economy, (2002) London: Pluto Press. p. 262.

Truth, Way, Democracy

“The object of this Essay is to explain as clearly as I am able grounds of an opinion which I have held from the very earliest period when I had formed any opinions at all on social political matters, and which, instead of being weakened or modified, has been constantly growing stronger by the progress reflection and the experience of life. That the principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes — the legal subordination of one sex to the other — is wrong itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.”

John Stuart Mill The Subjection of Women

Source: The Subjection of Women (1869), Ch. 1

Life, Sex, Perfection

““I believe in God,” says my nan, in a way that makes the idea of an omnipotent, unifying frequency of energy manifesting matter from pure consciousness sound like a chore. An unnecessary chore at that, like cleaning under the fridge. I tell her, plucky little seven-year-old that I was, that I don’t. This pisses her off. Her faith in God is not robust enough to withstand the casual blasphemy of an agnostic tot. “Who do you think made the world, then?” I remember her demanding as fiercely as Jeremy Paxman would later insist I provide an instant global infrastructure for a post-revolutionary utopia. “Builders,” I said, thinking on my feet. This flummoxed her and put her in a bad mood for the rest of the walk. If she’d hit back with “What about construction at a planetary or galactic level?” she’d’ve had me on the ropes. At that age I wouldn’t’ve been able to riposte with “an advanced species of extraterrestrials who we have been mistakenly ascribing divine attributes to due to our own technological limitations” or “a spontaneous cosmic combustion that contained at its genesis the code for all subsequent astronomical, chemical, and biological evolution.” I probably would’ve just cried. Anyway, I’m supposed to be explaining the power of forgiveness, not gloating about a conflict in the early eighties in which I fared well against an old lady. Since getting clean from drugs and alcohol I have been taught that I played a part in the manufacture of all the negative beliefs and experiences from my past and I certainly play a part in their maintenance. I now look at my nan in another way. As a human being just like me, trying to cope with her own flaws and challenges. Fearful of what would become of her sick daughter, confused by the grandchild born of a match that she was averse to. Alone and approaching the end of her life, with regret and lacking a functioning system of guidance and comfort. Trying her best. Taking on the responsibility of an unusual little boy with glib, atheistic tendencies, she still behaved dutifully. Perhaps this very conversation sparked in me the spirit of metaphysical inquiry that has led to the faith in God I now have.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Life, God, Alcohol, Age

“You are martyred, as woman is ever martyred, particularly if she seeks her own power.”

Michael Moorcock book The City in the Autumn Stars

Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 19 (p. 446)

“Unless the power of the corporation can be organized on an accepted principle of legitimacy, it will… be taken over by a Central government…”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1930s- 1950s, The Future of Industrial Man (1942), p. 96

“I, for one, thoroughly believe that no power in the universe can withhold from anyone anything he really deserves.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Universe

“[…] the virtues of a medicine depend less upon its intrinsic properties and powers than on the sagacity of the physician who administers it; just as the efficiency of firearms depends less upon the explosives and the missile they contain than on the judgment and accuracy of aim of the man who discharges them.”

Alfred Stillé book The Essentials of the Art of Medicine

The Essentials of the Art of Medicine. 1897. p 26.

Dependency

“The days of Black Power are numbered. Its course, indeed is onward. But with the swiftness of an arrow, it rushes to the tomb. While crushing its millions, it is also crushing itself. The sword of Retribution, suspended by a single hair, hangs over it. That sword must fall. Liberty must triumph.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

As quoted in "Sustaining Black Studies", by Winston A. Van Horne, Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 37, No. 3, (January 2007)
1850s

“Amir Khusrau mentions some of the powers “of sorcery and enchantment possessed by the inhabitants of India. First of all they can bring a dead man to life. If a man has been bitten by a snake and is rendered speechless, they can resuscitate him even after six months.””

Amir Khusrow (1253–1325) Indian poet, writer, musician and scholar

Amir Khusrau, Nuh Sipehr, Elliot and Dowson, III, p.563. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 1
Nuh Siphir

Life, Dead

“The ordinary surroundings of life which are esteemed by men (as their actions testify) to be the highest good, may be classed under the three heads — Riches, Fame, and the Pleasures of Sense: with these three the mind is so absorbed that it has little power to reflect on any different good.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

I, 3
Variant translation: The things which … are esteemed as the greatest good of all … can be reduced to these three headings, to wit : Riches, Fame, and Pleasure. With these three the mind is so engrossed that it cannot scarcely think of any other good.
On the Improvement of the Understanding (1662)

Life, Men, Pleasure, Sense

“Sin! Sin! Thou art a hateful and horrible thing, that abominable thing which God hates. And what wonder? Thou hast insulted His holy majesty; thou hast bereaved Him of beloved children; thou hast crucified the Son of His infinite love; thou hast vexed His gracious Spirit; thou hast defied His power; thou hast despised His grace; and in the body and blood of Jesus, as if that were a common thing, thou hast trodden under foot His matchless mercy. Surely, brethren, the wonder of wonders is, that sin is not that abominable thing which we also hate.”

Thomas Guthrie (1803–1873) British divine

Source: The Gospel in Ezekiel Illustrated in a Series of Discourses (1856), P. 32 (The Defiler).

Love, God, Hate, Children

“This 'God of Jane' idea, or 'God of Jim' or whoever, suits me in many ways. It suggests an intensely personal connection between each individual and the universe, for one thing. For another, it makes important distinctions between the private 'God' and the universal All That Is, while still maintaining the personal involvement. For instance, when I use the phrase 'the God of Jane', I'm referring to or trying to contact the portion of the universe that is forming me -- that is turning some indefinable divinity into this living temporal flesh. I want to avoid all other complications. I'm not trying to contact the God of Abraham, for instance, or the Biblical Christ, or the inexplicable power behind all of reality.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto (1981), p. 65

God, Way, Idea, Reality

“Gandhi is dead, yet his mind pervades the earth. The thought of a gnani pervades humanity and works ceaselessly for good. Being anonymous, coming from within, it is more powerful and compelling. That is how the world improves-the inner aiding and blessing the outer. When gnani dies, he is no more, in the same sense in which a river is no more when it merges in the sea; the name, the shape, are no more, but the water remains and becomes one with the ocean. When a gnani joins the universal mind, all his goodness and wisdom become the heritage of humanity and uplift every human being.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Universal mind
Source: "I am That." P.89.

Wisdom, World, Sense, Universe

“In the recent past, wolves were labeled a flagship species or an umbrella, indicator, or keystone species, depending on what conservation market one was trying to penetrate… A flagship species is an attraction to nearly all society's strata, but wolves are not welcomed by all factions of society. With a few rare exceptions, the rural world opposes wolves, so the animal's flagship role is restricted primarily to urbanites or to local areas. Wolves are certainly a powerful flagship species for the conservation movement, particularly that of affluent societies with strong lobbies in large cities, but a true flagship species should be able to move an entire society toward a goal.
Neither are wolves a good umbrella species (i. e., a species, usually high in the ecological pyramid, whose conservation necessarily fosters that of the rest of the chain) in that they can live well on a variety of food resources and in areas with an impoverished prey base. Wolves are not a keystone species either, in that they are not essential for the presence of many other species (e. g., herbivores flourish in areas devoid of wolves). And wolves are not necessarily indicators of good habitat quality or integrity because they are too generalist to be good indicators of the presence of a pristine trophic chain.
The above labels have been very useful in many circumstance and have contributed significantly to wolf recovery. They may still be useful in the future, but we should be aware that they are shortcuts to "sell a product" rather than good scientific grounds on which to build conservation.”

L. David Mech (1937) American Biologist , Ecologist

Wolves: Behavior, Ecology and Conservation (2003)

World, Food, Strong, Wolf

“People are attracted to people of high reproductive and genetic potential -the healthy, the fit and the powerful. The consequences of this fact, which goes under the name of sexual selection, are bizarre in the extreme.”

Matt Ridley (1958) economist

Source: The Red Queen (1993), Ch. 1. Human Nature

People

“It has been long understood that “consumer sovereignty” is a myth. To make fundamental changes in the commodity economy it is necessary to have power over production.”

John Bellamy Foster (1953) Sociology professor and Marxist writer

Interview with Left Voice, 2017

Change

“Then came the great days of the became historic. The sleepless nights, the permanent sessions. And, finally, the stirring declarations. "The Soviets take power!" "The Soviets address an appeal to the peoples of the world to put an end to the war." "The land is socialized and belongs to the peasants!"”

Alexandra Kollontai (1872–1952) Soviet diplomat

The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman (1926)

War, People, World, Night

“Magister Adler was deeply moved by something higher, but now when he wants to express his thoughts in words, wants to communicate, he confuses the subjective with the objective, his altered subjective state with an external event, the dawning of a light upon him with the coming into existence of something new outside him, the falling of the veil from his eyes with his having had a revelation. Subjectively his emotion is carried to the extreme; he wants to select the most powerful expression to describe it and by means of a mental deception grasps the objective qualification: having had a revelation.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

The Book of Adler, by Søren Kierkegaard, Hong 1998 p. 117
1840s, The Book on Adler (1846-1847)

Communication, Light

“Lost in the solitude of his immense power, he began to lose direction. He was bothered by the people who cheered him in neighboring villages, and he imagined that they were the same cheers they gave the enemy. Everywhere he met adolescents who looked at him with his own eyes, who spoke to him with his own voice, who greeted him with the same mistrust with which he greeted them, and who said they were his sons. He felt scattered about, multiplied, and more solitary than ever. He was convinced that his own officers were lying to him. He fought with the Duke of Marlborough. "The best friend a person has," he would say at that time, "is one who has just died."”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), p. 166

People, Imagination, Lying, Solitude

“We have here no traditions and ancient venerable institutions; here, there are no aristocratic elements hallowed by time or bright deeds; here, every man is the first settler of the land, or removed from the settler one or two generations at the furthest; here, we have no architectural monuments calling up old associations; here, we have none of these old popular legends and stories which, in other countries, have exercised a powerful share in the government; here every man is the son of his own works.”

Thomas D'Arcy McGee (1825–1868) Canadian politician

Hear, hear.
Legislative Assembly, February 9, 1865

Exercises, Time, Country

“The individual effort method of increasing the reward of the wage-earner includes all that is best in other methods, and attempts to exclude all that is objectionable. Its good points are summed up as follows:
# The standard time set is reasonable and one that can be reached without extraordinary effort, is in fact such time as a good foreman would demand.
# An extra reward of one-fifth of the regular wages for the operation is given to whoever makes standard time.
# Extra compensation above the hourly rate is paid even if standard time is not reached, although this extra compensation diminishes in percentage above standard time-and-a-half.
# If longer than time-and-a-half is taken, the regulai day rate is paid. Of this, the wage-earner is also sure.
# Standard time is carefully determined by observation and experiment, and is only changed when conditions change.
# The arrangement is one of mutual benefit to both parties — of increased earning to the worker, of increased saving to the employer.
# The employer loses more than the wage-earner if schedules do not encourage co-operation.
# The wage-earner, working on a schedule, becomes in a large degree his own foreman.
# The wage-earner determines his own earning power, and by co-operating to cut out wastes increases his own value.”

Harrington Emerson (1853–1931) American efficiency engineer and business theorist

Harrison Emerson, " Shop betterment and the individual effort method of profit-sharing http://archive.org/stream/americanengineer80newy#page/64/mode/1up" in: International Railway Journal Vol. 13. p. 61. 1905; Partly cited in Drury (1918, p. 141)

Effort, Change, Time

“As anyone who watches a bird flying may wish that he himself could fly, yet still he cannot fly, being without wings, so also a man may have the will to be pure, to be without blame and spotless, to be always without evil and in communion with God, yet he does not truly have the power. To fly into the divine air and enjoy the liberty of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor 3:18) may be one's desire, but, if he does not have wings given him, he cannot. Let us pray to God that he give us "the wings of a dove" (Ps 55:7) of the Holy Spirit so we may fly to him and find rest and that he may separate and take away from our soul and body such an evil wind, namely, sin itself, inhabiting the members of our soul and body. For this he alone is able to do.”

Macarius of Egypt (300–391) Egyptian Christian monk and hermit

Homily 2. The Fifty Spiritual Homilies, trans. George A. Maloney.
Disputed

God, Soul, Bird, Evil

“We believe in Allah, we take the Koran as a sacred book. In our land we broke the power of infidel Rum, in his own land we struck down her Sultan whom men called the Pope, in Malta we slew the Knights, sworn enemies of Islam. Inform your people that we are sent by Allah to geld the evil Turk and raise high the people of the Nile.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Napoleon Symphony (1974)

Men, People, Books, Evil

“There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.”

Margaret J. Wheatley (1941) American writer

Source: Turning to one another (2002), p. 55

Communication, Change

“In this age of space flight, when we use the modern tools of science to advance into new regions of human activity, the Bible … this grandiose, stirring history of the gradual revelation and unfolding of the moral law … remains in every way an up-to-date book. Our knowledge and use of the laws of nature that enable us to fly to the Moon also enable us to destroy our home planet with the atom bomb. Science itself does not address the question whether we should use the power at our disposal for good or for evil. The guidelines of what we ought to do are furnished in the moral law of God. It is no longer enough that we pray that God may be with us on our side. We must learn again that we may be on God's side.”

Wernher von Braun (1912–1977) German, later an American, aerospace engineer and space architect

As quoted in Phillips' Book of Great Thoughts & Funny Sayings (1993) edited by Bob Phillips, p. 42

God, Books, Age, Law

“[the United States is like] a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate.”

Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon (1862–1933) British Liberal statesman

Remember by Winston Churchill in 1941 as a remark made by Edward Grey 'more than thirty years ago' .
Reproduced in The Second World War, Vol III, The Grand Alliance, 1950, Cassell & Co Ltd, p. 540.

Light

“We are not talking about a new cognition in relation to Abstract art, rather a new area of cognition... This is where abstract art steps in, in a stronger sense of life, a stronger contact with the growing life, a feeling of the pulsation of life and growth in oneself, an activation of deep-seated powers a staple vitality far deeper than our cognition, not instead of science but inspired by it.”

Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist

Quote by Jorn, after Egill Jacobson's exhibition in Kunstforeningen (1945)
1940 - 1948, Various sources

Life, Art, Feeling, Sense

“Is there anything more powerful than Google? And our government is in bed with them, as we will show you tomorrow, in unbelievable ways. Unbelievable ways. We have, um, and have had for a while, people inside of Google who have alerted this program to things. There are people inside of Google who are terrified of some of the things that Google is doing and is involved in.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2011-02-15
Beck: "We Have … People Inside Of Google That Have Alerted This Program To Things" And Are "Terrified" Of Things Google Does
Media Matters for America
2011-02-15
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201102150016
2011-02-15
2010s, 2011

People, Way

“Pain is good, I'd say, when it's incidental to Love. In 'I give up my life for my friend' it is my friend, not my death, that matters. And sometimes I needn't give up my life for him, I can live for him, and with him, and the power of the spirit is then equally manifested, I should think.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Letter 285, to George Thomson, 1 August 1931
Selected Letters (1983-1985)

Love, Life, Death, Pain

“All our power lies in both mind and body; we employ the mind to rule, the body rather to serve; the one we have in common with the Gods, the other with the brutes.”
Sed nostra omnis vis in animo et corpore sita est; animi imperio, corporis servitio magis utimur; alterum nobis cum dis, alterum cum beluis commune est.

Sallust (-86–-34 BC) Roman historian, politician

Source: Bellum Catilinae (c. 44 BC), Chapter I

God

“Acting as your own sovereign power, grant yourself oblivion for past offences.”

Henry S. Haskins (1875–1957)

Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 111

Past

“For Poetry is the wisdom of the blood,
That scarlet tree within, which has the power
To make dull words bud forth and burst in flower.”

Osbert Sitwell (1892–1969) British baronet

"When First the Poets Sung", line 47.
These lines were repeatedly drawn on by Sitwell in his later works.

Wisdom, Flowers, Tree

“Generations of Americans will pay the Republican campaign debt to the energy industry with global instability, depleted national coffers and increased vulnerability to price shocks in the oil market. They will also pay with reduced prosperity and quality of life at home. Pollution from power plants and traffic smog will continue to skyrocket. Carbon-dioxide emissions will aggravate global warming. Acid rain from Midwestern coal plants has already sterilized half the lakes in the Adirondacks and destroyed the forest cover in the high peaks of the Appalachian range up into Canada. The administration's attacks on science and the law have put something even greater at risk. Americans need to recognize that we are facing not just a threat to our environment but to our values, and to our democracy.”

Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr. (1954) American activist

In "Crimes against nature" in Rolling Stone magazine (11 December 2003).

Life, Law, Democracy, Home

“I will not suffer the Christian religion to be reviled, while I sit in this Court, and possess the power of preventing it.”

Edward Law, 1st Baron Ellenborough (1750–1818) Lord Chief Justice of England

Baton's Case (1812), 31 How. St. Tr. 939.

Religion, Suffering

“I am not a communist and neither is the revolutionary movement, but we do not have to say that we are anticommunists just to fawn on foreign powers.”

Fidel Castro (1926–2016) former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President of Cuba

Resignation announcement (17 July 1959)

“We are alone and we should only rely on our power both to protect the front and to establish the order in the country.”

Aram Manukian (1879–1919) Armenian revolutionary, politician and general who managed and led the Van Resistance and instrumented the …

Attributed without citation in [Անկախության տոնը լիովին չի մտել մեր ընտանիք, http://civilnet.am/2013/09/21/tatul-hakobyan-column-armenia-independence-day, civilnet.am, 21 September 2013, 26 February 2014, Armenian]

Country

“A man's success in business today turns upon his power of getting people to believe he has something that they want.”

Gerald Stanley Lee (1862–1944) Americna minister

Book II, Chapter IX.
Crowds (1913)

People, Business, Success

“Power of auto-suggestion known in the Middle Ages. The power of thought, of idea, is incommensurable, is immeasurable. The world is dominated by thought. The human being individually is also entirely governed by his own thoughts, good or bad. The powerful action of the mind over the body, which explains the effects of suggestion, was well known to the great thinkers of the Middle Ages, whose vigorous intelligence embraced the sum of human knowledge.”

Emile Coué (1857–1926) French psychologist and pharmacist

Source: Autosuggestion : My method (2014), Chapter I. The reality of auto-suggestion.

Age, World, Intelligence, Idea

“There is an abundance of power to be found in simplicity.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 53

“"Another situation generally exposed to ressentiment danger is the older generation's relation with the younger. The process of aging can only be fruitful and satisfactory if the important transitions are accompanied by free resignation, by the renunciation of the values proper to the preceding stage of life. Those spiritual and intellectual values which remain untouched by the process of aging, together with the values of the next stage of life, must compensate for what has been lost. Only if this happens can we cheerfully relive the values of our past in memory, without envy for the young to whom they are still accessible. If we cannot compensate, we avoid and flee the “tormenting” recollection of youth, thus blocking our possibilities of understanding younger people. At the same time we tend to negate the specific values of earlier stages. No wonder that youth always has a hard fight to sustain against the ressentiment of the older generation. Yet this source of ressentiment is also subject to an important historical variation. In the earliest stages of civilization, old age as such is so highly honored and respected for its experience that ressentiment has hardly any chance to develop. But education spreads through printing and other modern media and increasingly replaces the advantage of experience. Younger people displace the old from their positions and professions and push them into the defensive. As the pace of “progress” increases in all fields, and as the changes of fashion tend to affect even the higher domains (such as art and science), the old can no longer keep up with their juniors. “Novelty‟ becomes an ever greater value. This is doubly true when the generation as such is seized by an intense lust for life, and when the generations compete with each other instead of cooperating for the creation of works which outlast them. “Every cathedral,” Werner Sombart writes, “every monastery, every town hall, every castle of the Middle Ages bears testimony to the transcendence of the individual's span of life: its completion spans generations which thought that they lived for ever. Only when the individual cut himself loose from the community which outlasted him, did the duration of his personal life become his standard of happiness.” Therefore buildings are constructed ever more hastily—Sombart cites a number of examples. A corresponding phenomenon is the ever more rapid alternation of political regimes which goes hand in hand with the progression of the democratic movement. But every change of government, every parliamentary change of party domination leaves a remnant of absolute opposition against the values of the new ruling group. This opposition is spent in ressentiment the more the losing group feels unable to return to power. The “retired official” with his followers is a typical ressentiment figure. Even a man like Bismarck did not entirely escape from this danger."”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912)

Life, Happiness, People, Youth

“The economy is not in our [i. e. black] hands, we are not in control of economic power. We have identified the weaknesses in [land reform]. Willing buyer, willing seller did not work. It made the state’s price tag an unfair process. In addition there are many laws dealing with land which cause confusion and delays. … Land hunger is real.”

Jacob Zuma (1942) 4th President of South Africa

On 3 March 2017 during his annual address to the National House of Traditional Leaders, Zuma wants ‘black parties’ to unite on land issue https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1446107/zuma-wants-black-parties-unite-land-issue/, Citizen reporter (3 March 2017)

Hunger, Law

“We send our [peacekeepers] off to some disputed zone, full of local intrigue and power blocs and uncertainty and danger, and they are supposed to save lives not with their weapons, but through their competence and their character. And they do it.”

Romeo LeBlanc (1927–2009) Canadian politician

Source: speech on the occasion of the presentation of the insignia of the Order of Military Merit, February 5, 1997

“[moot issue is that ] we should talk about is not just lessons in leadership or what the leaders need to do today but what can India do to bring those leaders back to India, so India itself can become an even more powerful economy going forward.”

Indra Nooyi (1955) Indian-born, naturalized American, business executive

Quoted in "A Learning CEO Can Power Through Tough Times: Indra Nooyi".

“Scientologists are at war with a member of their own family - the outspoken niece of the church's powerful leader, David Miscavige. Jenna Hill Miscavige, 24, the daughter of David's older brother Ron, recently came out in support of Andrew Morton's "Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography," and slammed the star for "supporting a religion that tears apart families, both in the media and monetarily."”

David Miscavige (1960) leader of the Church of Scientology

Since then, Jenna claims she's been subjected to harassment.
[Richard Johnson, Paula Froelich, Bill Hoffmann, Corynne Steindler, Marianne Garvey, http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/item_cTEbjaLicw7fDz7Gu2jFoK;jsessionid=A8156F120CCA0D16F233E470F02315D7, Family Feud In Tom's Church, New York Post, NYP Holdings, Inc, February 6, 2008, 2010-07-03].
About

War, Family, Religion, Star

“I cannot imagine the Labour Party coming into power without a first-rate financial crisis. That is why we ask for full emergency measures.”

Stafford Cripps (1889–1952) British politician

The Manchester Guardian (5 November 1934), quoted in Hugh Dalton, The Fateful Years. Memoirs 1931-1945 (London: Frederick Muller Ltd, 1957), p. 150.

Imagination

“The high abbesses… had the power to heal, …almost certainly heard confessions, probably ordained clergy, and may even have celebrated Mass.”

Thomas Cahill book How the Irish Saved Civilization

Source: How the Irish Saved Civilization (1995), Ch. VI What Was Found

“II. Thesis. In order that decision by arbitrary power may be possible in spite of completely definite laws of the action of ideas, one must assume that the psychic mechanism itself has, or at least in its development acquires, the peculiar property of inducing the necessity of these laws. Antithesis. No one can, in case of affairs, abandon the conviction that the future is co-determined by his transactions.”

Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) German mathematician

Antimonies
Gesammelte Mathematische Werke (1876)

Law, Idea, Decision, Future

“The binding power of custom is its security of expectations. What has happened before may be expected to happen again, and he who arbitrarily disappoints expectations must be restrained or punished.”

John R. Commons (1862–1945) United States institutional economist and labor historian

Source: Legal foundations of capitalism. 1924, p. 301

Disappointment

“If there is one thing more than another better established about the British Constitution it is this, that the Commons, and the Commons alone, have the complete control of supply and ways and means. And what our fathers established through centuries of struggles and of strife, even of bloodshed, we are not going to be traitors to. Who talks about altering and meddling with the Constitution? The Constitutional Party…As long as the Constitution gave rank and possession and power it was not to be interfered with. As long as it secured even their sports from intrusion, and made interference with them a crime; as long as the Constitution forced royalties and ground-rents and fees, premiums and fines, the black retinue of extraction; as long as it showered writs, and summonses, and injunctions, and distresses, and warrants to enforce them, then the Constitution was inviolate, it was sacred, it was something that was put in the same category as religion, that no man ought to touch, and something that the chivalry of the nation ought to range in defence of. But the moment the Constitution looks round, the moment the Constitution begins to discover that there are millions of people outside the park gates who need attention, then the Constitution is to be torn to pieces. Let them realize what they are doing. They are forcing revolution.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Newcastle (9 October 1909), quoted in The Times (11 October 1909), p. 6
Chancellor of the Exchequer

People, Religion, Way, Sport

“In ceasing to subordinate creative power to any supreme value, modern art has brought home to us the presence of that creative power throughout the whole history of art.”

André Malraux (1901–1976) French novelist, art theorist and politician

Part IV, Chapter VI
Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence] (1951)

Art, Home, History

“Justice is closely connected to respect for rights. Modern writers discuss both subjects together with no suggestion that one might discuss one with the other. It was not always so. Greek political theory and Roman Law had sophisticated ideas about justice in its various aspects, but did not embrace our conception of individual rights. This may seem counter-intuitive. How could a society recognize someone as the owner of a piece of property without acknowledging an individual right? How does legitimate one-man rule, monarchy, differ from its illegitimate parody, tyranny, unless the lawful king has a right to the authority he exercises that the tyrant does not?
The answer is that property and authority were defined by law rather than our notion of individual rights. To own property was to be the person to whom the law accorded the privileges and immunities that locally defined ownership. To be a legitimate ruler was to be the person the law designated to rule. It is a commonplace that ancient notions of law accorded far more power over property to the family and other groups than modern notions of private property do. Even under the Roman Law, where ownership had an 'absolute' and sovereign character, property was not understood in the modern way; when the law told the judge to give a man his ius, this primarily meant that he should be treated as the law required. The 'subjective' understanding of rights, whereby the right-holder may stand on his rights or not as he chooses, was not a Roman notion.”

Alan Ryan (1940) British philosopher

Justice (1993)

Family, Justice, Law, Way

“(Generally or) Men in general are too inclined to let themselves be overawed by what is quantitatively great. It is thus that even thoughtful minds let themselves be impressed ("éblouis", Fr.) by the strenght of Napoléon 1st, to much so that (to the point that) seeing (to see) in his person something august (or majestic), when indeed (in fact) he only have had ("il n'ait eu que", Fr.) selfish aims (or plans). Half the earth ("globe terrrstre", Fr.) is put to fire and sword to obtain to a man the pleasant sensation of his own absolute power.”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 43.

Men, Personality, Selfishness

“The true Genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

The Life of Cowley http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/lvwal10h.htm Lives of the English Poets (1779–81)

“Let me repeat, gentlemen, that a right-minded and true-hearted statesman who has had as much sovereign power placed in his hands as you have placed in mine should regard himself as the servant of the Senate; and often of the people as a whole; and sometimes of private citizens, too. I do not regret this view, because I have always found you to be generous, just, and indulgent masters.”
Dixi et nunc et saepe alias, p[atres]. c[onscripti]., bonum et salutarem principem, quem vos tanta et tam libera potestate instruxistis, senatui servire debere et universis civibus saepe et plerumque etiam singulis; neque id dixisse me paenitet, et bono et aequos et faventes vos habui dominos et adhuc habeo.

Tiberius (-42–37 BC) 2nd Emperor of Ancient Rome, member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty

Variant translation: Conscript Fathers, I have often said it both now and at other times, that a good and useful prince, whom you have invested with so great and absolute power, ought to be a slave to the senate, to the whole body of the people, and often to individuals likewise: nor am I sorry that I have said it. I have always found you good, kind, and indulgent masters, and still find you so.
To the Senate, from Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, ch.29

People, Heart

“A powerful consumers cooperative movement helps to maintain an equitable balance between prices and profits, and thereby decreases the power of owners and investors.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Property (1935)

Help

“We know not of its presence, though its power
Be on the gradual round of every hour,
Now flinging down an empire, now a flower.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

(1837 1) (Vol. 49) Necessity
The Monthly Magazine

Flowers

“I believe with all my heart that the dream to evangelize the world in this generation will be accomplished by God's power working through his disciples. And to God be the glory!”

Kip McKean (1954) minister

http://www.kipmckean.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/Revolution_through_Restoration_1_2_3.pdf, Ending to Revoultion Through Restoration 1, 1992.
Revolution Through Restoration (1992-2002)

God, World, Dreams, Heart

“Each officer possesses all the power necessary to render his position efficient, and has the authority with the approval of the President and General Superintendent to appoint all persons for whose acts he is held responsible, and may dismiss any subordinate when, in his judgment, the interest of the company will be promoted thereby.”

Daniel McCallum (1815–1878) Canadian engineer and early organizational theorist

Source: Report of the Superintendent of the New York and Erie Railroad to the Stockholders (1856), p. 40; Cited in Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. (1977) The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. p. 102

Personality

“Adorno retains the concept of the system and even makes it, as target and object of critique, the very center of his own anti-systematic thinking. … His most powerful philosophical and aesthetic interventions are all implacable monitory reminders—sometimes in well-nigh Weberian or Foucauldian tones—of our imprisonment within system, the forgetfulness or repression of which binds us all the more strongly to it.”

Fredric Jameson (1934) American academic

Source: Late Marxism: Adorno, or, The Persistence of the Dialectic (1990), p. 27

Thinking, Forgetting

“The most powerful instruments of civilization are two - the Christian religion, and education.”

Francisco Luís Gomes (1829–1869) Indo-Portuguese physician, writer, historian, economist, political scientist and MP in the Portuguese parli…

Quoted by Nishitha Desai in Lusotopie 2000, p. 474

Education, Religion

“Although the ideal of free enterprise could, indeed, lend itself to the uplifting of the human condition, when it is practiced for profit alone, it becomes but a license for the powerful to further enslave the weak.”

Gerry Spence (1929) American lawyer

Source: Give Me Liberty! (1998), Ch. 7 : The New Slave Master, p. 89

“Men called to the conduct of troops should prepare themselves to deal with cases more and more varied upon an ever-increasing horizon of experience. They can only be given the capacity to arrive at a prompt and judicious position by developing in them through study their power of analysis and of synthesis; that is, of conclusion in a purely objective sense, conclusion upon problems which have been actually lived and taken from real history. Thus also can they be founded through the conviction that comes from knowledge in a confidence sufficient to enable them to take such decisions upon the field of action.”

Ferdinand Foch (1851–1929) French soldier and military theorist

Source: Precepts and Judgments (1919), p. 199

Men, Confidence, History, Knowledge

“The Book of Job is advice on how to live in terms of the absolute power of nature. Leviathan is advice on how to live in terms of the absolute power of the state.”

Donald Phillip Verene (1937) philosopher

Source: Philosophy and the Return to Self-Knowledge (1997), p. 188

Books, Nature

“Living financially and economically on American charity, selling up the house to the Yanks when he won't pay any more charity out. Are you content to be occupied and protected by American aeroplanes? Are you content to be in the position of an old woman, jipped by her young relations? You who were the greatest power on earth fifty years ago, and still can be! Why do I say, 'you still can be'? Because, my friends, I know you, I know the British people! I know that twice in my lifetime in the world war I fought in, in the world war the younger men fought in. We the British have put our effort, our energy of valor, of heroism, unequalled in the history of mankind.”

Oswald Mosley (1896–1980) British politician; founder of the British Union of Fascists

Speech on 21 Novembver, 1960. http://www.oswaldmosley.com/audio/300million.m3u

Men, War, People, World

“Here’s the pay paradox that Why Men Earn More explains: Men earn more money, therefore men have more power; and men earn more money, therefore men have less power (earning more money as an obligation, not an option). The opposite is true for women: Women earn less money, therefore women have less power; and women earn less money, therefore women have more power”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

the option to raise children, or to not take a hazardous job
Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 11.

Women, Men, Money, Children

“[S]egments of the Right, who denounced phrases like “economic patriotism” when it passed Barack Obama’s lips but nod and cheer when similar phrases come out of the mouths of “nationalists.” They see the state as the key to fostering a new social solidarity because it alone speaks for their new idol — or “strong god” — of the Nation. Passionate nationalists, like passionate socialists, ultimately believe that the State can love you, and if the right people take it over, the divisions that are inevitable in a free society will be knitted together by some government initiative. But that is not love, it is lust. It is a lust for power and victory for your vision over all others.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

2010s, 2018, The Government Can’t Love You (2018)

Love, God, People, Strong

“In the face of our (KMT) unprecedented, crushing defeat (in 2014 Republic of China local and municipal election), we have no time for a power struggle.”

Hung Hsiu-chu (1948) Taiwanese politician

Hung Hsiu-chu (2014) cited in " KMT stalwarts in no rush to fill Ma Ying-jeou's shoes http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1654274/kmt-stalwarts-no-rush-fill-ma-ying-jeous-shoes" on South China Morning Post, 3 December 2014

Time

“On June 22nd, [1633, ] in the morning, in the great hall of the Convent of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, Galileo was found guilty of holding a false doctrine. He went down on his knees and both abjured and condemned his own errors. He swore never to argue such doctrines again. It was thus definitely confirmed that the sun did rotate around the earth…Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. Saint Mary Over Minerva. Power over wisdom.”

John Ralston Saul The Doubter's Companion

"Wisdom"
The Doubter's Companion (1994)

Wisdom, Error, Sun, Falseness

“India is the Saudi Arabia of human resources for the 21st century. The power that we used to get from oil in 20th century, we will get it from people like you in 21st century.”

Rahul Gandhi (1970) Indian politician

Rahul Gandhi: India is going to be 21st century Saudi Arabia, Rahul Gandhi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YOZOM0lROs

People

“In May 1961 when I took over power as the leader of the revolutionary group, I honestly felt as if I had been given a pilfered household or bankrupt firm to manage. Around me I could find little hope of encouragement. The outlook was bleak. But I had to rise above this pessimism to rehabilitate the household. I had to destroy, once and for all, the vicious circle of poverty and economic stagnation. Only by reforming the economic structure would we lay a foundation for decent living standards.”

Park Chung-hee (1917–1979) Korean Army general and the leader of South Korea from 1961 to 1979

As quoted in An economy in armor; in Korea's quiet revolution https://books.google.com/books?id=yJZKpYXh2SAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+two+koreas&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4QMiVa7UCsu3sAWQxoAg&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=the%20two%20koreas&f=false (1992), by Frank B. Gibney, New York: Walker and Company, p. 50

Hope

Quotes about power page 89

Quotes about power
page 89