Social Power Quotes

The government was set to protect man from criminals-and the constitution was written to protect man from the government. The Bill of Rights was not directed at private citizens, but against the government-as an explicit declaration that individual rights supersede any public or social power.

Power over a man's support is a power over his will.

The social power of the Presidency is one of the most powerful tools a President can use.

Power is of two kinds: one is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love.

Neither, I must say with all due respect, is it the power of teachers and students. Basically the true and real power is with working people of all colors, of all beliefs, of all national origins.

Power is generally defined as control over resources and control over access to resources, which often means control over other people because we're thinking about things like financial resources or shelter, or even love and affection, but we also possess resources that we sometimes can't access.

There's politics in all aspects of our daily lives.

Every intellectual attitude is latently political.

Religion, in any form, is always interesting to me because of how powerful it is. Not even the religion itself, but to the people that follow it... The effect that it has had on people's minds.

It’s only at certain points in history that people realize just how much power that they have.

It is possible to imagine a society flushed with such a sense of power that it could afford to let its offenders go unpunished.

Power will be maintained by the groovy guy or gal who gets the most media coverage for his sleaze. Naturally, his friends in various businesses will do okay, too.

No society can function as a society, unless it gives the individual member social status and function, and unless the decisive social power is legitimate.

Power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert. Power is never the property of an individual; it belongs to a group and remains in existence only so long as the group keeps together. When we say of somebody that he is 'in power' we actually refer to his being empowered by a certain number of people to act in their name. The moment the group, from which the power originated to begin with ... disappears, 'his power' also vanishes.

The ruling ideas of each age have always been the ideas of the ruling class.

If a test of civilization be sought, none can be so sure as the condition of that half of society over which the other half has power.

Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society.

Race is not particularly interesting to me. Power is. Who has power and who doesn't. Slavery interests me because it's an incredible violation that has not stopped. It's necessary to talk about that. Race is a diversion.

The reputation of power IS power.

The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself.

The paradox of American democracy has been that its slogan of equal opportunity has meant, often, equal opportunity to get power over your fellows.

Power goes to two poles: to those who've got money and those who've got people.

The competition of social power with State power is always disadvantaged, since the State can arrange the terms of competition to suit itself, even to the point of outlawing any exercise of social power whatever in the premises; in other words, giving itself a monopoly.

One precedent in favor of power is stronger than an hundred against it

Whatever is the strongest power in society will obtain the governing authority; and a change in the political constitution cannot be durable unless preceded or accompanied by an altered distribution of power in society itself