Honore de Balzac Quotes

You see, control can never be a means to any practical end...It can never be a means to anything but more control...like junk.

If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.

The average European does not seem to feel free until he succeeds in enslaving and oppressing others.

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

Power corrupts; but absolute power is really neat.

I think the greatest lesson that power has to teach us is, once you've had it, once you are a part of it, you're never free.

The Authority has the power to turn everyone against me, and they have.

I think it's a dangerous thing for anyone to have power over other people.

The passion for power over others can never cease to threaten mankind, and is always sure of finding new and unforseen allies in continuing its martyrology.

That's what tyrants do, I guess. They make you covet their attention; they make you confuse attention for mercy.

The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.

Let people hate you so long as they fear you.

Power not only corrupts he who wields the power but those who submit to it. Those who grovel at the feet of power betray their fellows to hide themselves behind the cloak of submission. It is an evil thing.

Authority is quite degrading.

Power is always right, weakness always wrong. Power is always insolent and despotic.

If you worship power, you will feel weak and afraid, needing ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay.

The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny.

Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.

Beware the tyranny of the weak. They just suck you dry.

Fear of death has been the greatest ally of tyranny past and present.

You can be a control freak only when you have weak people around you.

There's a certain amount of tyranny in all of us to some extent, and in some people it's much more developed than in others. It's a different balance which makes us all different.

You carry forever the fingerprint that comes from being under someone's thumb.