This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"There is no alienation that a little power will not cure." - Eric Hoffer
"The mind or spirit is present everywhere, because it is nowhere attached to any particular place. And it can remain present because, even when related to this or that object, it does not cling to it and thus lose its original mobility. Like water filling a pond, which is always ready to flow off again, it can work its inexhaustible power because it is free, and be open to everything because it is empty. This state is essentially a primordial state, and its symbol, the empty circle, is not empty of meaning for him who stands within it." - Eugen Herrigel
"The bloom of human life is morality; whatever else we may possess, health and wealth, power, grace, knowledge, have a value only as they lead up to this, have a meaning only as they make this possible." - Felix Adler
"Goodness answers to the theological virtue charity, and admits no excess but error. The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall. But in charity there is no excess; neither can angel or man come in danger by it." - Francis Bacon
"The commandment of knowledge is yet higher than the commandment over the will: for it is a commandment over the reason, belief, and understanding of man, which is the highest part of the mind, and giveth law to the will itself. For there is no power on earth which setteth up a throne or chair of estate in the spirits and souls of men, and in their cogitations, imaginations, opinions, and beliefs, but knowledge and learning." - Francis Bacon
"It is a work of prudence to prevent injury, and of a great mind, when done, not to revenge it. He that hath revenge in his power, and does not use it, is the great man; it is for low and vulgar spirits to transport themselves with vengeance. To endure injuries with a brave mind is one half the conquest." - Francis Bacon
"Knowledge and human power are synonymous, since the ignorance of the cause frustrates the effect." - Francis Bacon
"Knowledge is power." - Francis Bacon
"The desire of power in excess caused angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in charity is no excess, neither can man nor angels come into danger by it." - Francis Bacon
"Nothing destroyeth authority so much as the unequal and untimely interchange of power pressed too far, and relaxed too much." - Francis Bacon
"The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused man to fall." - Francis Bacon
"It is a strange desire to seek power and lose liberty." - Francis Bacon
"Prayer is more the mere outburst of the desires or sorrows of the soul, seeking that satisfaction or consolation which it does not find within itself. It is the expression of a faith, instinctive or reflective, obscure or clear, wavering or steadfast, in the existence, the presence, the power and the sympathy of the Being to whom prayer is addressed." - François Guizot, fully François Pierre Guillaume Guizot
"The study of art is a taste at once engrossing and unselfish, which may be indulged without effort, and yet has the power of exciting the deepest emotions - a taste able to exercise and to gratify both the nobler and softer parts of our nature." - François Guizot, fully François Pierre Guillaume Guizot
"How shall I be able to rule over others, that have not full power and command of myself?" - François Rabelais
"Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR
"Of all the tyrannies which have usurped power over humanity, few have been able to enslave the mind and body as imperiously as drug addiction." - Freda Adler
"Power concedes nothing without a demand… The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress." - Frederick Douglass, born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey
"Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will." - Frederick Douglass, born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey
"The sun is 93 million miles from the Earth; it is the center of the solar system, and by the power of gravity holds every planet in its orbit. Yet that very same sun can ripen a bunch of grapes as though that was all it had to do." - Galileo Galilei, known simply as Galileo
"Mankind is safer when men seek pleasure than when they seek the power and the glory." - Geoffrey Gorer
"What is the true content of art, and with what aim is this content to be presented? On this subject our consciousness supplies us with the common opinion that it is the task and ima of art to bring in contact with our sense, our feeling, our inspiration, all that finds a place in the mind of man... Its aim is therefore placed in arousing and animating the slumbering emotions, inclinations, and passions; in filling the heart, in forcing the human being, whether cultured or uncultured, to feel the whole range of what man’s soul in its inmost and secret corners has power to experience and to create, and all that is able to move and to stir the human breast in its depths and in its manifold aspects and possibilities; to present as a delight to emotion and to perception all that the mind possesses of real and lofty in its thought and in the Idea - all the splendor of the noble, the eternal, and the true; and no less to make intelligible misfortune and misery, wickedness and crime; to make men realize the inmost nature of all that is shocking and horrible, as also of all pleasure and delight; and, finally, to set imagination roving in idle toyings of fancy, and luxuriating in the seductive spells of sense-stimulating visions." - Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
"Passions, private aims, and the satisfaction of selfish desires, are… most effective springs of action. Their power lies in the fact that they would respect none of the limitations which justice and morality would impose on them; and [they] have a more direct influence over man than the artificial and tedious discipline that tends to order and self-restraint, law and morality." - Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
"Whatever power I may have over my own thoughts, I find the ideas actually perceived by Sense have not a like dependence on my will... There is therefore some other Will or Spirit that produces them." - George Berkeley, also Bishop Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne
"What I mean by a religious person is one who conceives himself or herself to be the instrument of some purpose in the universe which is a high purpose, and is the motive of evolution - that is, of a continual ascent in organization and power and life, and extension of life." - George Bernard Shaw
"Our laws make law impossible; our liberties destroy all freedom; our property is organized robbery; our morality an impudent hypocrisy; our wisdom is administered by inexperienced or mal-experienced dupes; our power wielded by cowards and weaklings; and our honor false in all its points. I am an enemy of the existing order for good reasons." - George Bernard Shaw
"Truth is a very different thing from fact; it is the loving contact of the soul with spiritual fact, vital and potent. It does not work I the soul independently of all faculty or qualification there for setting it forth or defending it. Truth in the inward parts is a power, not an opinion." - George MacDonald
"Free will is not the liberty to do whatever one likes, but the power of doing whatever one sees ought to be done, even in the very face of otherwise overwhelming impulse. There lies freedom, indeed." - George MacDonald
"Man's rank is his power to uplift." - George MacDonald
"To have what we want is riches, but to be able to do without is power." - George MacDonald
"Power-worship blurs political judgment because it leads, almost unavoidably, to the belief that present trends will continue. Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible." - George Orwell, pen name of Eric Arthur Blair
"A kingdom is more easyly gotten than kept. For to get is the gift of fortune, but to keepe is the power of prudency and wisdome." - George Pettie
"Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness." - George Washington
"The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government." - George Washington
"Power can be taken, but not given. The process of the taking is empowerment in itself." - Gloria Steinem
"Never underestimate your power to change yourself; never overestimate your power to change others." - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
"The Great Spirit is everywhere; he hears whatever is in our minds and hearts, and it is not necessary to speak to Him in a loud voice. Since the drum is often the only instrument used in our sacred rites, I should perhaps tell you here why it is especially sacred and important to us. It is because the round form of the drum represents the whole universe, and its strong beat is the pulse, the heart, throbbing at the center of the universe. It is as the voice of Wakan-Tanka, and this sound stirs us and helps us to understand the mystery and power of all things." - Nicholas Black Elk, formally Heȟáka Sápa
"When we use the water in the sweat lodge, we should think of Wakan-Tanka who is always flowing, giving His power and life to everything; we should even be as water, which is lower than all things, yet stronger even than the rocks." - Nicholas Black Elk, formally Heȟáka Sápa
"Habit and routine have an unbelievable power to waste and destroy" - Henri de Lubac
"Power is the great aphrodisiac." - Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
"Intelligence is not all that important in the exercise of power and is often, in point of fact, useless. Just as a leader doesn't need intelligence, a man in my job doesn't need too much of it either." - Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
"Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac." - Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
"Throughout history the political influence of nations has been roughly correlative to their military power." - Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
"The vision of a world community based on justice, not power, is the necessity of our age." - Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
"There will never be a really free and enlightened state until the state comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power an authority are derived, and treats him accordingly." - Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
"Art is power." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow