The will to power (German: der Wille zur Macht) is a prominent concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. The will to power describes what Nietzsche may have believed to be the main driving force in humans: achievement, ambition, the striving to reach the highest possible position in life; these are all manifestations of the will to power.
Alfred Adler incorporated the will to power into his individual psychology. This can be contrasted to the other Viennese schools of psychotherapy: Sigmund Freud's pleasure principle (will to pleasure) and Viktor Frankl's logotherapy (will to meaning). Each of these schools advocates and teaches a very different main driving force in "man". The "will to power" has been "identified" in nature in the dominance hierarchies studied in many living species.
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“I have seen in this revolution a circular motion of the sovereign power through two usurpers, father and son, to the late King to this his son. For ... it moved from King Charles I to the Long Parliament; from thence to the Rump; from the Rump to Oliver Cromwell; and then back again from Richard Cromwell to the Rump; then to the Long Parliament; and thence to King Charles, where long may it remain.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)