Famous quotes containing the word power:
“Nature’s law says that the strong must prevent the weak from living, but only in a newspaper article or textbook can this be packaged into a comprehensible thought. In the soup of everyday life, in the mixture of minutia from which human relations are woven, it is not a law. It is a logical incongruity when both strong and weak fall victim to their mutual relations, unconsciously subservient to some unknown guiding power that stands outside of life, irrelevant to man.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“‘Tis not such lines as almost crack the stage
When Bajazet begins to rage;
Nor a tall met’phor in the bombast way,
Nor the dry chips of short-lunged Seneca.
Nor upon all things to obtrude
And force some odd similitude.
What is it then, which like the power divine
We only can by negatives define?”
—Abraham Cowley (1618–1667)
“I have no concern with any economic criticisms of the communist system; I cannot enquire into whether the abolition of private property is expedient or advantageous. But I am able to recognize that the psychological premises on which the system is based are an untenable illusion. In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression of one of its instruments ... but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence which are misused by aggressiveness.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)