Knowledge is power.

FRANCIS BACON, Meditationes Sacrae

The Age of Reason has turned out to be the Age of Structure; a time when, in the absence of purpose, the drive for power as a value in itself has become the principal indicator of social approval. And the winning of power has become the measure of social merit.

JOHN RALSTON SAUL, Voltaire's Bastards

Arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken.

ABIGAIL ADAMS, letter to John Adams, May 7, 1776

I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, Havelock Ellis' The Dance of Life

Authority and power are two different things: power is the force by means of which you can oblige others to obey you. Authority is the right to direct and command, to be listened to or obeyed by others. Authority requests power. Power without authority is tyranny.

JACQUES MARITAIN, "The Democratic Charter," Man and the State

Power is given only to those who dare to lower themselves and pick it up. Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare!

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, Crime and Punishment

It is a mistake, that a lust for power is the mark of a great mind; for even the weakest have been captivated by it; and for minds of the highest order, it has no charms.

The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.

NICHOLAS BLACK ELK, The Sacred Pipe

Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.

SAUL ALINSKY, "Tactics," Rules for Radicals

Power gradually extirpates for the mind every humane and gentle virtue.

EDMUND BURKE, A Vindication of Natural Society

Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON, "Self Reliance," Essays

Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.

HENRY KISSINGER, And I Quote

One of the things about powerful people is they have the ability to make it look easy.

The depositary of power is always unpopular.

Extensive powers not exercised as far as was necessary have, I believe, scarcely ever failed to ruin the possessor.

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

EDMUND BURKE, speech on the Middlesex Elections, 1771

The great fish swallow up the small; and he who is most strenuous for the rights of the people, when vested with power, is as eager after the prerogatives of government.

ABIGAIL ADAMS, letter to John Adams, Nov. 27, 1775

Power has only one duty -- to secure the social welfare of the People.

BENJAMIN DISRAELI, Sybil

Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

LORD ACTON, letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, Apr. 3, 1887

It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.

AUNG SAN SUU KYI, Freedom from Fear

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, Queen Mab

Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.

Power? It’s like a Dead Sea fruit. When you achieve it, there is nothing there.

HAROLD MACMILLAN, Anthony Sampson's The New Anatomy of Britain

The power to cause pain is the only power that matters, the power to kill and destroy, because if you can't kill then you are always subject to those who can, and nothing and no one will ever save you.

ORSON SCOTT CARD, Ender's Game

Power tires only those who do not have it.

GIULIO ANDREOTTI, London Independent, Apr. 5, 1992

O how feeble is man's power,

That if good fortune fall,

Cannot add another hour,

Nor a lost hour recall!

With great power there must also come ... great responsibility!

STAN LEE, Amazing Fantasy #15, Aug. 1962