Quotes about power

He was usually easygoing, one of those guys with little respect for authority because of a conviction that people in charge tend to do stupid things.

The problem is that too often the only people who can act don’t want change. Power doesn’t so much corrupt as it breeds conservatism.

How does it happen that the most intractable types always rise to the top?

If it is not profitable for the common good that authority should be retained, it ought to be relinquished.

What is government but an arrangement by which the many accept the authority of the few?

To put on the garment of legitimacy is the first aim of every coup.

The system was aided by the Church, whose natural interests allied it more to the great than to the meek.

He had intended to say that such was the nature of power. Seizing it and holding it were alike filthy.

Do you think maybe I want power for myself? That’s for fools who want to command other fools.

I name you idiot for playing with powers you only presume to understand.

Order was the very substance of rule. If things were organized, control could be asserted.

“You make it sound like having the power to change the world is a bad thing.”

“Bad? No. Abhorrent, depressing, ghastly. Having power is a terrible burden, the worst thing imaginable, except for every other alternative.”