Fear of Power Quotes

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.

When I speak out against the guns or against the big corporations, some of my friends say, 'Oh Yoko, be careful. These people have all the power.' But, you know, most people don't speak out because they are frightened.

The trouble with modern democracy is that men do not approach to leadership until they have lost the desire to lead anyone.

I think women are scared of feeling powerful and strong and brave sometimes.

Among precautions against ambition, it may not be amiss to take precautions against our own. I must fairly say, I dread our own power and our own ambition: I dread our being too much dreaded.

The people in this country have always been afraid of power. Now, maybe the powerful are becoming a little afraid of the people.

Sarah Palin is an empty vessel ready to be filled by ideology that she doesn't even understand, and that is really scary. Nothing is more frightening than an empty vessel in power.

My words must be powerful to make people so afraid of them. It's rather nice to feel I have power.

I should fear the infinite power and inflexible justice of the almighty mortal hardly as yet apotheosized, so wholly masculine, with no sister Juno, no Apollo, no Venus, nor Minerva, to intercede for me, thumoi phileousa te, kedomene te.

Consider the black widow spider. It's a timid little beastie, useful and, for my taste, the prettiest of the arachnids, with its shiny, patent-leather finish and its red hourglass trademark. But the poor thing has the fatal misfortune of possessing enormously too much power for its size. So everybody kills it on sight.

To the inexperienced it is a pleasant thing to court the favour of the great; an experienced man fears it.

To be anywhere near an enormous ocean liner when you are just like a fish in the water is frightening.

And this Feare of things invisible, is the naturall Seed of that, which every one in himself calleth Religion; and in them that worship, or feare that Power otherwise than they do, Superstition.

It is not power that corrupts but fear.

I don't know what frightens me more, the power that crushes us, or our endless ability to endure it.

No power is strong enough to be lasting, if it labours under the weight of fear.

Whom hatred frights, let him not dream of sovereignty.

Making people fear the expression of their own power is a very effective way of disempowering them. It is not just those who feel the frustration of being silenced: it also encompasses every person who has no idea of their own power to realise their visions because they have not seen this in action in their communities.