Malcolm Forbes Quotes

We have, I fear, confused power with greatness.

Every one, more or less, loves Power, yet those who most wish for it are seldom the fittest to be trusted with it.

So I still seized the power, but I felt that if I officially made myself the boss, in black and white, it would be too intimidating for the other producers and the other men who worked on the show. In other words, I had the power, but I gave them the title.

All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.

In conspiracies, men who know what they wanted commonly ended by controlling the men who did not.

Power protects power.

When we think we lead, we are most led.

Power goes to two poles: to those who've got money and those who've got people.

I never say someone is powerful.

If you get to thinking you're a person of some influence, try ordering somebody else's dog around.

Power ... is not an end in itself, but is an instrument that must be used toward an end.

Everybody's trying to hold onto some shred of dignity in the process of it all, and, at the same time, never talking about how they don't have the power. No one has the power. So, you know, producers - we always think, "Well, producers are very powerful," but producers don't really have the power.

I have plumbed the depth of human cowardice and I realized that there is only one way to be right, and that is to be in power.

If one meets a powerful person - Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates - ask them five questions: 'What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?' If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.

The less the power, the greater the desire to exercise it.

If one meets a powerful person--Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates--ask them five questions: "What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?

I've never vied for power in the family before. Pointing a box at the garage door and saying "Open!" was never a big deal, but holding that television tuner and realizing I alone control what is flashed on the screen brings out the Iacocca in me.

You run the party or the party runs you.

Politics. The art of governing mankind by deceiving them.

They who possess the prince possess the laws.

Even when you’re in charge, you’re not sure who’s in charge.

Politics is the art of acquiring, holding and wielding power.

Hegemony mean[t] that [Athens] organized and directed their combined efforts without securing permanent political power over the other[s].

I do understand power, whatever else may be said about me. I know where to look for it and how to use it.

Washington has political power combined with the insider illusion of being in control.