Quotes about power

So true it is that, in every condition of life, the strong man who is guilty saves himself at the expense of the innocent who is weak.

Thus the Opera kept my piece and defrauded me of the recompense for which I had surrendered my rights in it. Between the weak and the strong, this would be called robbery; between the strong and the weak, it is simply called the appropriation of what belongs to one’s neighbour.

Richard was the rightful king, but a fool. Henry’s father is a capable man, but a usurper. Sometimes it is hard to know which of these positions is worse.

Henry’s father is ill, but he is not ready to die. This is a problem for the king himself. It is an even more serious problem for everyone else. A semifunctioning king is far worse for the realm than a dead one.

The king was purposefully creating the maximum amount of fear. In Richard’s mind, the fear of his subjects equated to his own sense of power.

Many people may think it is insane of someone endowed with such a potential abundance of power to spend his life producing works of art which no one can see. Well, my own ideas of morality prescribe that only a lunatic would aspire to subordinate the fate of others to his own wishes. I leave it to a higher authority to decide which view is the right one.

It symbolizes the three components of power: power, power and power.

In my position I simply can’t afford pangs of conscience. Fortunately, they fade the more power one acquires. It’s an entirely natural process.

“I notice you didn’t laugh, Mr. Black!”

“No, Your Majesty. We are forbidden to laugh at the things kings say, sire, because otherwise we would be at it all day.”

That was their law. The strongest man led. That made sense. At least, it made sense to strong men.

They had the well-fed, important, careful look of people who took care not to be at the top. A lot of government people like them had dined at the Hall. They had learned over the years that the top was not a happy or safe place to be. One rung down, that was the place for a sensible man. You advised the king, you had a lot of power, in a quiet kind of way, and you didn’t get murdered anything like as often. And, if the ruler started to get funny ideas and it became a bit of an embarrassment, you just…took care of things.

When the master has come to do everything through the slave, the slave becomes his master, since he cannot live without him.