O thou great, unknown Power! Thou Almighty God, who hast lighted up reason in my breast and blessed me with immortality! I have frequently wandered from that order and regularity necessary for the perfection of thy works, yet thou hast never left me nor forsaken me.
We're taught Lord Acton's axiom: all power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. I believed that when I started these books, but I don't believe it's always true any more. Power doesn't always corrupt. Power can cleanse. What I believe is always true about power is that power always reveals.
Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled, either by a power within them, or by a power without them; either by the word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible, or by the bayonet.
I think that the power is the principle. The principle of moving forward, as though you have the confidence to move forward, eventually gives you confidence when you look back and see what you've done.
The strongest and most effective force in guaranteeing the long-term maintenance of power is not violence in all the forms deployed by the dominant to control the dominated, but consent in all the forms in which the dominated acquiesce in their own domination.
I often say of George Washington that he was one of the few in the whole history of the world who was not carried away by power.
An elusive, enigmatic aura will make people want to know more, drawing them into your circle. Create such a power by hinting at something contradictory within you.
Power is the measure of the degree of control you have over circumstances in your life and the actions of the people around you. It is a skill that is developed by a deep understanding of human nature, of what truly motivates people, and of the manipulations necessary for advancement and protection.
Most people can bear adversity; but if you wish to know what a man really is give him power.
They who gain applause and power by pandering to the mistakes, the prejudices and passions of the multitude are the enemies of liberty.
Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think.
Hand in hand with freedom of speech goes the power to be heard, to share in the decisions of government which shape men's lives.
Knowledge is power only if man knows what facts not to bother with.
The problem with Russia is not corruption per se, or even Putin per se. Russian government is not corrupt because Vladimir Putin has absolute power. Russian government has been corrupt and will always be as long as anyone has absolute power.
Knowledge is power. Information is power. The secreting or hoarding of knowledge or information may be an act of tyranny camouflaged as humility.
Basically, to lead without a title is to derive your power within the organisation not from your position but from your competence, effectiveness, relationships, excellence, innovation and ethics.
As a lawyer and a former prosecutor, I know the limits of the power and authority of the president. I know what is legal and what is not.
There is no 'us' and 'them'; it's an illusion. We are all human beings, and we all have a responsibility to support one another and to discover ways of wresting the power from the very, very few people who control all the cash and all the property.
Social acceptance, 'being liked,' has so much power because it holds the feelings of loneliness at bay.
All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk.
Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.
And so it is, that both the Devil and the angelic Spirit present us with objects of desire to awaken our power of choice.
Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.
Law without education is a dead letter. With education the needed law follows without effort and, of course, with power to execute itself; indeed, it seems to execute itself.
I know the power obedience has of making things easy which seem impossible.
The secret of my influence has always been that it remained secret.
The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.
The love of power, like the love of money, increases with the possession of it; and we know in what ruin these baneful passions have involved human societies in all ages when they have been let loose and suffered to rage uncontrolled - There is no restraint like the pervading eye of the virtuous citizens.
A physician's physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric's divinity has to his power of influencing conduct.
Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.
Enthusiasm... the sustaining power of all great action.
I am a woman, and I am a Latina. Those are the things that make my writing distinctive. Those are the things that give my writing power.
Scientists will eventually stop flailing around with solar power and focus their efforts on harnessing the only truly unlimited source of energy on the planet: stupidity. I predict that in the future, scientists will learn how to convert stupidity into clean fuel.
With rock music, the amount of power that you can generate, the intensity behind the intentions of your lyrics that you can really reflect through rock music - you can't do that in jazz. You can't do that with classical.
Leadership is about vision and responsibility, not power.
When we consistently suppress and distrust our intuitive knowingness, looking instead for authority, validation, and approval from others, we give our personal power away.
Doing good holds the power to transform us on the inside, and then ripple out in ever-expanding circles that positively impact the world at large.
Someone who has experienced trauma also has gifts to offer all of us - in their depth, their knowledge of our universal vulnerability, and their experience of the power of compassion.
We pay for power plant pollution through higher health costs.
The more we deny that we have a dark side, the more power it has over us.
Evil, when we are in its power, is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, even a duty.
What connects two thousand years of genocide? Too much power in too few hands.
It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being, and we therefore yield to our neighbors, even to our animal neighbors, the same right as ourselves to inhabit this vast land.
I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.
There are two ways of attaining an important end, force and perseverance; the silent power of the latter grows irresistible with time.
Power, after love, is the first source of happiness.
If you don't give power to the words that people throw at you to hurt you, they don't hurt you anymore. And you actually have power over those people.
Every human has four endowments - self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change.
I would like nuclear fusion to become a practical power source. It would provide an inexhaustible supply of energy, without pollution or global warming.
I've always believed in God. I also think that's the sort of thing that either comes as part of the equipment, the capacity to believe, or at some point in your life, when you're in a position where you actually need help from a power greater than yourself, you simply make an agreement.