![]() Irving Babbitt, "What I Believe" (1930).The crucial question is whether one is safe in assuming that the immense machinery of power that has resulted from activity of the utilitarian type can be made, on anything like present lines, to serve disinterested ends whether it will not rather minister to the egoistic aims either of national groups or of individuals.Jacques Attali, in Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music (1996), p.Music now seems hardly more than a somewhat clumsy excuse for the self-glorification of musicians and the growth of a new industrial sector. What is called music today is all too often only a disguise for the monologue of power.Giulio Andreotti, three time Italian Prime Minister as quoted in Godfather III, Obituary of Giulio Andreotti. ![]() ![]() Power wears out those who don't have it.American Friends Service Committee in Speak Truth to Power : A Quaker Search for an Alternative to Violence (1955).John Adams in a letter to Thomas Jefferson (2 February 1816).Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak. Power always sincerely, conscientiously, de très bon foi, believes itself right.Lord Acton, in a letter to Mandell Creighton (5 April 1887), published in Historical Essays and Studies (1907).There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.Mumia Abu-Jamal, "Is Obama's Victory Ours?" 06-05-08.Politics is the art of making the people believe that they are in power, when in fact, they have none.Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations.Power is "the possession of control or command over people authority influence" or "political ascendancy or control in the government of a country, state, etc."Īrranged alphabetically by author or source: ~ Jon Sobrino Let us, cautious in diction Jesus' journey to the cross is a trial dealing with the authentic nature of power. In Jesus' eyes God's ultimate historical word is love, whereas the ultimate historical word of power in the human world is oppression. The political organization of Rome might dazzle the world with its power, but it was oppressive hence there was nothing sacred or divine about it. The pax romana is not the kingdom of God. Jesus desacralizes that kind of power and its claim to be the absolute mediation of God. ![]() God is love, and he manifests himself in the dialectics of an impotent love. ~ Thomas Jefferson They worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?” ~ John of Patmos God is not simply power, as most people were inclined to think. But I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power, the greater it will be. ~ Pope Francis Not in our day, but at no distant one, we may shake a rod over the heads of all, which may make the stoutest of them tremble. ~ Noam Chomsky Let us turn our backs on power. The real world teaches very different lessons, and it takes willful and dedicated ignorance to fail to perceive them. ~ Lord Acton It is only in folk tales, children's stories, and the journals of intellectual opinion that power is used wisely and well to destroy evil. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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