As for the men in power, they are so anxious to establish the myth of infallibility that they do their utmost to ignore truth.-- Boris Pasternak Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.-- Aldous Huxley What do I care about the law? Hain't I got the power?-- Cornelius Vanderbilt The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse. -- James Madison The imbecility of men is always inviting the impudence of power. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power. -- Seneca There is no knowledge that is not power. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. -- Mao Tse-Tung Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power. -- Charles Caleb Colton We often say how impressive power is. But I do not find it impressive at all. The guns and the bombs, the rockets and the warships, are all symbols of human failure. They are necessary symbols. They protect what we cherish. But they are witness to human folly. -- Lyndon Baines Johnson Nothing destroys authority so much as the unequal and untimely interchange of power, pressed too far and relaxed too much. -- Francis Bacon We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom.-- Stephen Vincent Benet Power, like a desolating pestilence, / Pollutes whate'er it touches.-- Percy Bysshe Shelley Power does not corrupt man; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power. -- George Bernard Shaw Power dements even more than it corrupts, lowering the guard of foresight and raising the haste of action.-- Will and Ariel Durant A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us worthy of using it. -- Jean Rostand We cannot live by power, and a culture that seeks to live by it becomes brutal and sterile. But we can die without it. -- Max Lerner I know of nothing sublime which is not some modification of power. -- Edmund Burke Man is born to seek power, yet his actual condition makes him a slave to the power of others. -- Hans J. Morgenthau In the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding on the back of the tiger ended up inside. -- John Fitzgerald Kennedy A conscience which has been bought once will be bought twice.-- Norbert Wiener Anarchy is the stepping stone to absolute power.-- Napoleon Bonaparte An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.-- Thomas Jefferson Even weak men when united are powerful.-- Friedrich von Schiller Every high degree of power always involves a corresponding degree of freedom from good and evil. -- Friedrich Nietzsche I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.-- James Madison Management has no power--only responsibility.-- Peter Drucker Mankind is safer when men seek pleasure than when they seek the power and the glory.-- Geoffrey Gorer The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.-- George Bernard Shaw There is a homely adage which runs: "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far."-- Theodore Roosevelt The wrong sort of people are always in power because they would not be in power if they were not the wrong sort of people.-- Jon Wynne-Tyson Those in power want only to perpetuate it.-- William O. Douglas We have, I fear, confused power with greatness.-- Stewart L. Udall With the pride of the artist, you must blow against the walls of every power that exists, the small trumpet of your defiance.-- Norman Mailer We have met the enemy and they are us!-- Walt Kelly