« All Power Quotes · Eric Hoffer's Page
Power Quotes by Eric Hoffer
- Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others…
- People unfit for freedom - who cannot do much with it - are hungry for power. The desire for freedom is an attribute of a…
- Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power.
- There are similarities between absolute power and absolute faith: a demand for absolute obedience, a readiness to attempt the impossible, a bias for simple solutionsto…
- To the excessively fearful the chief characteristic of power is its arbitrariness. Man had to gain enormously in confidence before he could conceive an all-powerful…
- Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves, we are ready to believe all that…
- The main effect of a real revolution is perhaps that it sweeps away those who do not know how to wish, and brings to the…
- Totalitarianism spells simplification: an enormous reduction in the variety of aims, motives, interests, human types, and, above all, in the categories and units of power.
- Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.
- It is doubtful whether the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power-power to oppress others.
- Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart. For we can win a man's…
- Freedom means freedom from forces and circumstances which would turn man into a thing, which would impose on man the passivity and predictability of matter.…
- The great crimes of the twentieth century were committed not by money-grubbing capitalists but by dedicated idealists. Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler were contemptuous of money.…
- The untalented are more at ease in a society that gives them valid alibis for not achieving than in one where opportunities are abundant. In…
- When watching men of power in action it must be always kept in mind that, whether they know it or not, their main purpose is…
- When the weak want to give an impression of strength they hint menacingly at their capacity for evil. It is by its promise of a…
- There is no alienation that a little power will not cure.
- The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its antihumanity.
- Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies…
- Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart.
More Power Quotes
- No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes. On the contrary, whatever the punishment, once… — Hannah Arendt
- Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness. — Aristotle
- To this military attitude of the soul we give the name of Heroism... It is a self-trust which slights the restraints of… — Ralph Waldo Emerson
- In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of… — Aristotle
- A good intention clothes itself with power. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but… — Hannah Arendt
- I'd take precision any day over power; as far as being tactical you know you have to see what's going on in… — Alexis Arguello
- The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival. — Aristotle