Not necessity, not desire - no, the love of power is the demon of men. Let them have everything - health, food, a place to live, entertainment - they are and remain unhappy and low-spirited: for the demon waits and waits and will be satisfied.
Power is a disease one has no desire to be cured of.
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.
Power is sweet; it is a drug, the desire for which increases with a habit.
Anyone who said power was not addictive had never really experienced it.
To love one's country, the governance should be good. But politicians are addicts of power. It is because they don't read that they have become so inhuman. Reading is what makes humans, humans.
There is a lure in power. It can get into a man's blood just as gambling and lust for money have been known to do
Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never look to anything but power for their relief.
Human beings are addicted to power in an interesting way, and this is what makes a lot of people feel powerful: belittling people that are commonly belittled. I think if we understood that this was going on, that this was the mechanism at work within us, we wouldn't be that way.