Power Dynamics Quotes

Religion may in most of its forms be defined as the belief that the gods are on the side of the government.

I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.

It's probably better to have the son-of-a-bitch inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.

Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of people would die for Him.

Authority is something from which we are constantly subtracting, of which there remains always a residue, and which we attempt to make smaller and smaller.

I care not who forms the government of a country, so long as I control the purse strings.

Do you not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?

For years, we've been bludgeoned with the cliche "information is power." But information isn't power. After all, who's got the most information in your neighborhood? Librarians. And they're famous for having no power at all. And who has the most power in your community? Politicians. And they're notorious for being ill-informed.

The dependence of one people upon another, even for the benefits of legislation, is the deepest source of national weakness.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable, the art of the next best.

Whenever the law gets its hands on you, those who use the law to their own advantage will also turn it against you. Don't put your trust in the laws of men, Alvin. They were designed by strong men to improve their power over weaker ones.

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.

Governments have nothing. They can't create anything, they never have. All they can do is steal from one group and give it to another

Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.

Some people are by nature slaves and will always be so.

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.

No one is able to rule unless he is also able to be ruled.

Lacan , Derrida and Foucault are the perfect prophets for the weak, anxious academic personality, trapped in verbal formulas and perennially defeated by circumstances. They offer a self-exculpating cosmic explanation for the normal professorial state of resentment, alienation, dithering passivity and inaction.

Have others fear you, and I will have no fear.

Power is only too happy to make football bear a diabolical responsibility for stupefying the masses.

Rape was an insurrectionary act. It delighted me that I was defying and trampling upon the white man's law, upon his system of values, and that I was defiling his women.

One murder made a villain, Millions a hero. Princes were privileged To kill, and numbers sanctified the crime..

The history of women is the history of the worst form of tyranny the world has ever known. The tyranny of the weak over the strong. It is the only tyranny that lasts.

When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles.