Jack McDevitt Quotes

I think that, like the show 'Game of Thrones,' our fascination with power struggles is pretty unanimous.

Humans want to know the hierarchy; it's important for there to be one leader.

Don’t try threatening an Alpha. They don’t like it.

People naturally follow leaders stronger than themselves.

A man's a man. But when you see a king, you see the work of many thousand men.

If I had to choose one which best characterized the condition of being a political leader in Athens, the word would be "tension".

The supreme rulers are hardly known by their subjects. The lesser are loved and praised. The even lesser are feared. The least are despised.

Eminent station makes great men more great, and little ones less.

The position of power and having to make decisions that you don't necessarily want to make is always good conflict and good drama.

If you see yourself as a kingly type, then you need your serfs and your army and so on around you.

The prince and the peasant will not be equalized by cutting off the prince's head.

What matters is what happens among the powerful.

If you've got good chemistry at the top, it's an enormous help. It's easy to have good chemistry with some, not so easy with others. With [Robert Mugabe], for example.

As in the presence of the Master, the Servants are equall, and without any honour at all; So are the Subjects, in the presence of the Soveraign. And though they shine some more, some lesse, when they are out of his sight; yet in his presence, they shine no more than the Starres in presence of the Sun.

We must have kings, we must have nobles; nature is always providing such in every society; only let us have the real instead of the titular. In every society some are born to rule, and some to advise. The chief is the chief all the world over, only not his cap and plume. It is only this dislike of the pretender which makes men sometimes unjust to the true and finished man.

Kings stand more in need of the company of the intelligent than the intelligent do of the society of kings.

You look at what Vladimir Putin is doing with President Obama. He's, like, toying with him. He's toying with him.

I may command where I adore.

Suddenly you've worked yourself up to the top of the pecking order and you say to yourself, okay, this is going to be fun.

The whole of our civilization is founded on specialization, which implies the enslavement of those who execute to those who coordinate.

Men live in glad obedience to the masters they believe in, or they live in a frictional opposition to the master they wish to undermine.

A popular man arouses the jealousy of the powerful.

Everybody must be managed. Queens must be managed. Kings must be managed, for men want managing almost as much as women, and that's saying a good deal.

Even with a round table, some people always seem able to sit at the head of it.