Aleister Crowley Quotes

The House of Lords, an illusion to which I have never been able to subscribe--responsibility without power, the prerogative of the eunuch throughout the ages.

If absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure?

There is none made so great, but he may both need the help and service, and stand in fear of the power and unkindness, even of the meanest of mortals.

Force always attracts men of low morality.

The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both.

In a confrontation with the politics of power, the soft center has always melted away.

Arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken.

Power tires only those who do not have it.

People demand freedom only when they have no power.

Machiavelli taught me it was better to be feared than loved. Because if you are loved they sense you might be weak. I am a man of the people and help them but it is important to do so through strength.

But even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked.

The establishment is made up of little men, very frightened.

One should never forbid what one lacks the power to prevent.

Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.

In a just cause the weak will beat the strong.

It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power.

Powerlessness frustrates; absolute powerlessness frustrates absolutely. Absolute frustration is a dangerous emotion to run a world with.

The weak have one weapon: the errors of those who think they are strong.

Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.

The people are difficult to govern: It is because those in authority are too fond of action [change].

If you are strong, and if you have a strong logic, you can convince people by your ideas. Torture means your logic is very weak, so you need power to impose on others.

Where there is no might right loses itself.

The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation's greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us

People crushed by law have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws

Liberty is so much latitude as the powerful choose to accord to the weak.