I think the first British actor who really worked well in cinema was Albert Finney. He was a back-street Marlon Brando. He brought a great wittiness and power to the screen. The best actor we’ve had.

It is more agreeable to have the power to give than to receive.

Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation alone you can intimidate and win; once it slips, however, you are vulnerable, and will be attacked on all sides. Make your reputation unassailable.

The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim’s sympathies.

The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.

Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.

A word after a word after a word is power.

The totalitarian, to me, is the enemy – the one that’s absolute, the one that wants control over the inside of your head, not just your actions and your taxes.

I look forward to a great future for America – a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.

The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.

What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man.

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.

Music has the power to inspire the world.

Nobody is as powerful as we make them out to be.

Use power to help people. For we are given power not to advance our own purposes nor to make a great show in the world, nor a name. There is but one just use of power and it is to serve people.

Time is compressed like the fist I close on my knee… I hold inside it the clues and solutions and the power for what I must do now.

Mystical references to society and its programs to help may warm the hearts of the gullible but what it really means is putting more power in the hands of bureaucrats.

The power of an air force is terrific when there is nothing to oppose it.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.

Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it.

The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world’s definitions.

Power is poison. Its effect on Presidents had always been tragic.

Fortune, which has a great deal of power in other matters but especially in war, can bring about great changes in a situation through very slight forces.

Machines are worshipped because they are beautiful and valued because they confer power; they are hated because they are hideous and loathed because they impose slavery.

The 21st century is going to be the American century. Because we lead not only by the example of our power, but by the power of our example. That is the history of the journey of America.

The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.

All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State.

In Europe first and now in America, elected men have taken it upon themselves to indebt their people to create an atmosphere of dependency. And why? For their own selfish need to increase their own personal power.

We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.

It takes tremendous discipline to control the influence, the power you have over other people’s lives.

This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.

You see the film, you might be entertained, and if it’s not a great film, it loses its power very quickly. I think even simply acceptable books stay with us a lot longer.

We should understand the source of our authority and something of the keys that control its power.

We can approach God’s throne with boldness because we are confident in the power of what Jesus accomplished for us at the cross.

Power has only one duty – to secure the social welfare of the People.

Palestinians have no wealth or power.

Words are loaded pistols.

Well, I think indigenous peoples have ways of living on the Earth that they’ve had forever. And they’ve been overrun by organized religion, which has had a lot of money and power.

Swimming has its educational value – mental, moral, and physical – in giving you a sense of mastery over an element, and of power of saving life, and in the development of wind and limb.

What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.

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.

I believe in benevolent dictatorship provided I am the dictator.

My experience with power, you can maintain it, or you get it taken from you. You get you some newfound power and go crazy, and it get taken from you quick.

The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn’t betray it I’d be ashamed of myself.

Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.

It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.

Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.

There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.

Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root.

I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected President but refuses because he doesn’t want to give up power.

There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex.

You cannot be in a position of power and destroy the life of another person.