Quotes · Skopia

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Topic·Political power✕clear

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

This leads to a debate: is it better to be loved than feared, or the reverse? The answer is that it is desirable to be both, but because it is difficult to join them together, it is much safer for a prince to be feared than loved, if he is to fail in one of the two.

Niccolo Machiavelli

The Prince · 1532

★ 3.9

I repeat... That all power is a trust - that we are accountable for its exercise - that, from the people, and for the people, all springs, and all must exist.

Benjamin Disraeli

1826

★ 3.5

Essay · Political literature

Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with a maneuver, a blow with an agreement.

1932

★ 3.5

Political literature

It is for us... To inquire constantly and persistently, when theories of national power or states' rights are propounded: "What interests are behind them and to whose advantage will changes or the maintenance of old forms accrue?" By refusing to do this we become victims of history-clay in the hands of its makers.

Charles A. Beard

An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States · 1935

★ 3.4

Political literature

All political power is primarily an illusion... Mirrors and blue smoke, beautiful blue smoke rolling over the surface of highly polished mirrors, first a thin veil of blue smoke, then a thick cloud, that suddenly dissolves into wisps of blue smoke, the mirrors catching it all, bouncing it back and forth.

1975

★ 3.4

The State is an instrument in the hands of the ruling class, used to break the resistance of the adversaries of that class.

1924

★ 2.0

Whosoever commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.

Sir Walter Raleigh

1618

★ 1.0