Negative Power

Famous quotes containing the words negative and/or power:

“The idealist’s programme of political or economic reform may be impracticable, absurd, demonstrably ridiculous; but it can never be successfully opposed merely by pointing out that this is the case. A negative opposition cannot be wholly effectual: there must be a competing idealism; something must be offered that is not only less objectionable but more desirable.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)

“He had come down, He said, to clean the earth
Of the dirtiness of war.
Now tell of why His power failed Him there?
His power did not fail. It was that, simply,
He found how much the people wanted war.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)