The Quotes canon
Sourced and curated.
Every quote has been curated by hand and carefully authenticated.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Thomas Hobbes2 quotes
Riches, knowledge and honour are but several sorts of power. — Thomas Hobbes · 1651I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death. — Thomas Hobbes · 1651A.J. Liebling1 quote
Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one. — A.J. Liebling · 1960Abraham Lincoln1 quote
No man is good enough to govern another man, without that other's consent. — Abraham Lincoln · 1854Andrew Hamilton1 quote
Power may justly be compared to a great River, while kept within its due Bonds, is both Beautiful and Useful; but when it overflows its Banks, it is then too impetuous to be stemm'd, it bears down all before it, and brings Destruction and Desolation wherever it comes. If then this is the Nature of Power, let us at least do our Duty, and like wise Men (who value Freedom) use our utmost Care to support Liberty, the only Bulwark against lawless Power, which in all Ages has sacrificed to it's wild Lust and boundless Ambition, the Blood of the best Men that ever liv'd. — Andrew Hamilton · 1735Blondie1 quote
You see in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend—those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig. — Blondie · 1966Carl Jung1 quote
Where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other. — Carl Jung · 1912Edmund Burke1 quote
The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse. — Edmund Burke · 1771Fyodor Dostoevsky1 quote
Power is given only to him who dares to stoop and take it... One must have the courage to dare. — Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1866George Shultz1 quote
Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table. — George Shultz · 1986Hannah Arendt1 quote
Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. — Hannah Arendt · 1969Henry Adams1 quote
The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim's sympathies. — Henry Adams · 1907Henry Clay1 quote
The arts of power and its minions are the same in all countries and in all ages. It marks its victim; denounces it; and excites the public odium and the public hatred, to conceal its own abuses and encroachments. — Henry Clay · 1834Henry Kissinger1 quote
Power is the great aphrodisiac. — Henry Kissinger · 1971Herodotus1 quote
The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing. — Herodotus · 430 BCJames Madison1 quote
It will not be denied, that power is of an encroaching nature, and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it. — James Madison · 1788Jesus1 quote
For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? — Jesus · 60Karl Deutsch1 quote
To have power means not to have to give in, and to force the environment or the other person to do so. Power in this narrow sense is the priority of output over intake, the ability to talk instead of listen. In a sense, it is the ability to afford not to learn. — Karl Deutsch · 1966Lord Acton1 quote
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men. — Lord Acton · 1887Lord Varys1 quote
Power resides where men believe it resides. It’s a trick, a shadow on the wall. And a very small man can cast a very large shadow. — Lord Varys · 2012Mao Zedong1 quote
Every Communist must grasp the truth: "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." — Mao Zedong · 1938Niccolo Machiavelli1 quote
Whoever is responsible for another's becoming powerful ruins himself. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1513Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.1 quote
The only prize much cared for by the powerful is power. The prize of the general is not a bigger tent, but command. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. · 1913Oscar Wilde1 quote
Wherever there is a man who exercises authority, there is a man who resists authority. — Oscar Wilde · 1891Oskar Schindler1 quote
Power is when we have every justification to kill, and we don't. — Oskar Schindler · 1993Percy Bysshe Shelley1 quote
Power, like a desolating pestilence,
Pollutes whate'er it touches; and obedience,
Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,
Makes slaves of men, and, of the human frame,
A mechanized automation. — Percy Bysshe Shelley · 1813Rudyard Kipling1 quote
Four things greater than all things are,—
Women and Horses and Power and War. — Rudyard Kipling · 1890William Hazlitt1 quote
The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves. — William Hazlitt · 1819