The three most powerful and most apparent means used by Rome to retain her power over the minds of her votaries are Ignorance, Superstition, and Persecution.

Liberty consists in the power of doing that which is permitted by the law.

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

The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.

Not brute force but only persuasion and faith are the kings of this world.

We’re all caught up in circumstances, and we’re all good and evil. When you’re really hungry, for instance, you’ll do anything to survive. I think the most evil thing – well, maybe that’s too strong – but certainly a very evil thing is judgment, the sin of ignorance.

People are terrified of me, and I want them to be.

I like Italian movies. I was frequently there in the ’60s, in Rome and the vicinity. It was a great period in life. I was very influenced by their stuff.

Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.

Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.

Freedom is a man’s natural power of doing what he pleases, so far as he is not prevented by force or law.

Nature has always had more force than education.

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

The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour.

Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness.

You don’t need a lot of credentials to be prison guard in a federal prison. And, you know, you give them a set of keys and a weapon, and they’re in power.

Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.

I repeat… that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people and for the people all springs, and all must exist.

A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is the type of some great idea. Rome represents conquest; Faith hovers over the towers of Jerusalem; and Athens embodies the pre-eminent quality of the antique world, Art.

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.

Real politics are the possession and distribution of power.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

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

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.

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root.

Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

Anywhere I go, there is always an incredible crowd that follows me. In Rome, as I land at the airport, even the men kiss me. I love Rome.

It is paradoxical, yet true, to say, that the more we know, the more ignorant we become in the absolute sense, for it is only through enlightenment that we become conscious of our limitations. Precisely one of the most gratifying results of intellectual evolution is the continuous opening up of new and greater prospects.

It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it… anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

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

I am not interested in power for power’s sake, but I’m interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.

The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself.

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.

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

The first magic of love is our ignorance that it can ever end.

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

This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.

Ambition is the immoderate desire for power.

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable – a most sacred right – a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.

When you give everyone a voice and give people power, the system usually ends up in a really good place. So, what we view our role as, is giving people that power.

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.

Freedom does not die from frontal attack. It dies because men in power no longer believe in a system based upon liberty.

Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.

Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

The atomic bomb certainly is the most powerful of all weapons, but it is conclusively powerful and effective only in the hands of the nation which controls the sky.

Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.

He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.

Men blaspheme what they do not know.

Power is the great aphrodisiac.

I didn’t tell any of my friends that I wanted to be a comedian, because I was superstitious. I thought if I told people, it wouldn’t happen. So I kept it all in my head for years and years.

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

The thing is, if you control the Senate meetings, you control the gavel. And the gavel is a very important instrument… an instrument of power. An instrument that establishes the agenda.

Many Communist government officials have a rigid, dictatorial power, but they live in constant suspicion and fear of anything that might undermine the power they have.

Paranoia is just another word for ignorance.

When anyone has the power to destroy the whole human race in a matter of hours, it becomes a moral issue. The church must speak out.