Power

"...empathy is the most important power there is. Without it, we are doomed. With it, we can truly change the world.(interview from USC)"

"Everything changes as you move through three stages of awareness:first, that beliefs are the result of conditions;second, that beliefs are the cause of conditions;and third, that beliefs are themselves conditions."

"Every empire grow until its reach exceeds its grasp"

"You invoke a new futurewhen you envision your pastin the light of your present."

"Another fact that allowed Fascism to gain power over men was their blindness. A man cannot believe that he is about to be destroyed. The optimism of people standing on the edge of the grave is astounding."

"You would not believe what skill, power and ability your total intelligence possesses until you are in desperate need."

"The fact that the crime and the punishment were related and bound up in the form of atrocity was not the result of some obscurely accepted law of retaliation. It was the effect, in the rites of punishment, of a certain mechanism of power: of a power that not only did not hesitate to exert itself directly on bodies, but was exalted and strengthened by its visible manifestations; of a power that asserted itself as an armed power whose functions of maintaining order were not entirely unconnected with the functions of war; of a power that presented rules and obligations as personal bonds, a breach of which constituted an offence and called for vengeance; of a power for which disobedience was an act of hostility, the first sign of rebellion, which is not in principle different from civil war; of a power that had to demonstrate not why it enforced its laws, but who were its enemies, and what unleashing of force threatened them; of a power which, in the absence of continual supervision, sought a renewal of its effect in the spectacle of its individual manifestations; of a power that was recharged in the ritual display of its reality as 'super-power'."

"Your power and brilliance is the the most awesome force life could muster."

"Writing has the power of permanence."

"People can only have power over you if you are seeking to have power over others."

"You would not believe what skill, power and ability your total intelligence possesses until you lose your balance."

"You are powerful, if you choose to be."

"Knowledge is power but too much power tends to corrupt the minds of those who possess it."

"The sky is not the limit"

"They are the typical product of the structure of the German Lager: if one offers a position of privilege to a few individuals in a state of slavery, exacting in exchange the betrayal of a natural solidarity with theircomrades, there will certainly be someone who will accept. He will be withdrawn from the common law and will become untouchable; the more power that he is given, the more he will be consequently hateful andhated. When he is given the command of a group of unfortunates, with the right of life or death over them, he will be cruel and tyrannical, because he will understand that if he is not sufficiently so, someone else, judged more suitable, will take over his post. Moreover, his capacity for hatred, unfulfilled in the direction of the oppressors, will double back, beyond all reason, on the oppressed; and he will only be satisfied when he has unloaded onto his underlings the injury received from above."

"The chronicle of a man, the account of his life, his historiography, written as he lived out his life formed part of the rituals of his power. The disciplinary methods reversed this relation, lowered the threshold of describable individuality and made of this description a means of control and a method of domination."

"Sex and love they choose the different paths. Love always leads to devotion, sacrifice, and dedication, which are forms of insanity and madness; but sex it is always about comfort, pleasure and power."

"Don’t give someone the credit for holding you back. Give yourself the power in continuing to move forward."

"For years I wondered what was her curious power, her ability to attract all kinds of people to her and to use them for her own ends, often with their knowledge. i think it was that people liked watching and being with someone who enjoyed life as much as Sylvia seemed to enjoy it. She squeezed all the juice from the orange, or, to change the figure, drained the cup to the leaves, the very dregs."

"Being powerful means shifting our minds away from our troubles and into solution-thinking."