Fareed Zakaria Quotes

Power is being able to affect the hegemony of existing systems.

The people who exercise the power are not always the same people over whom it is exercised.

Politics and power is a realm of relative influence.

The politicians think the journalists have power, the journalists think bankers have power, bankers think lawyers have power. The truth is, nobody has power.

Society receives its momentum from power.

I have several times suggested that what I call the “Establishment” in this country is today more powerful than ever before. By “Establishment” I do not mean only the centers of official power – though they are certainly part of it – but rather the whole matrix of official and social relations within which power is exercised ... the “Establishment” can be seen at work in the activities of, not only the Prime Minister, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Earl Marshal, but of such lesser mortals as the Chairman of the Arts Council, the Director-General of the BBC, and even the editor of the Times Literary Supplement, not to mention dignitaries like Lady Violet Bonham Carter.

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

Power is insinuating. Few men are satisfied with less power than they are able to procure.

Owning media is power. That’s the way it is.

The gatekeepers don't control the gates, and the powers that be aren't as powerful.

The reputation of power IS power.

I am now The Establishment. There's nothing I can do about it.

Power never turns power down, ever, unless institutionally demanded.

Power is not something that can be assumed or discarded at will like underwear.

The most powerful men were those who most effectively used the power of adult competence to enforce childish agreements.

Who controls the present controls the past. There's a power structure, if you like, between the present and the past and the future, and that's what I'm interested in.

The power to define the situation is the ultimate power.

The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics.

I don't think that people in power can be convinced by words or articles. They will never give it up by choice.

In the sense that you're not at the centre of power, like a president or prime minister of a major power, everyone is marginalised; my position doesn't isn't unique in that respect. I think there are different sorts of relevance in different contexts.

Some of those men in power, we just have to change their faces because we're not going to change their minds.

Power doesn't just exist. It is threaded through different mechanisms of control. I'm interested in those complexities. But I want to address that in very forthright language and sometimes with images.

Power is not just political. It can be cultural; it can be spiritual.

Like most animals, we're wired to associate height with power.

Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society.