Patrick Henry Quotes

To rulers religion, like almost everything else, is a tool of power.

The problem with politics isn't the money; it's the power.

I'm not a kingmaker.

We have, I fear, confused power with greatness.

But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.

We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun. And we get it that if you want a friend you should get a dog.

I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating.

Democratic institutions are based on a reality of human nature: that those with power, however benign or even noble their intentions, will do what they can to keep it.

Everybody in Washington works for me.

Democracy is the fig leaf of elitism.

Asking politicians to vote themselves out of power is like asking rabbits not to multiply, it ain't natural.

In a republican land the power behind the throne is the power.

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

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

In the struggle for power, propaganda is an instrument to be used by those who want to secure or retain power just as much as it is by those wanting to displace them.

The instinct to command others, in its primitive essence, is a carnivorous, altogether bestial and savage instinct. Under the influence of the mental development of man, it takes on a somewhat more ideal form and becomes somewhat ennobled, presenting itself as the instrument of reason and the devoted servant of that abstraction, or political fiction, which is called the public good

Never doubt what small men will do for great power.

To be frank, politics is about wanting power, getting it, exercising it, and keeping it.

The central factor in most human beings is power. Politics is the manifestation of the quest for power.

when greed and fear are linked to power, you have a dangerous mix. We see that in political life. In part of the world, the mix of greed and fear means that those who get power become reluctant to give it back. One of the many things I like and admire in our democracies are the norms that make our leaders hand over power when voters tell them to

Power is, in its nature, encroaching; and such is the human make that men who are vested with a share of it are generally inclined to take more than it was intended they should have.

Power never takes two weeks off. Power takes long weekends.

My interest is in power. How power works.

The probability of the people in power being individuals who would dislike the possession and exercise of power is on a level with the probability that an extremely tender-hearted person would get the job of whipping-master in a slave plantation.

Right, left, Greens, Baathists, whatever: it comes down to grabbing and holding power and using ideology - or religion, race - as a justification.