Gertrude Atherton Quotes

Power! Did you ever hear of men being asked whether other souls should have power or not? It is born in them.

Religion, superstition, oaths, education, laws, all give way before passions, interest, and power.

Men love power.

Political ambition, like other kinds of ambition, is a basic human appetite …. Like other human appetites, ambition is not evenly distributed among the population, but enough people with substantial political ambition are naturally drawn to political careers to make the problem of controlling it a major aspect of constitutional government.

Never doubt what small men will do for great power.

The drive for control, or the perception thereof, is truly the strongest force in human nature.

The lust of dominion burns with a flame so fierce as to overpower all other affections of the human breast.

Two passions have powerful influence on the affairs of men: the love of power and the love of money.

I'm Machiavelli's offspring, I'm the king of New York, king of the coast, one hand, I juggle them both.

Immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control affairs.

A passion for politics stems usually from an insatiable need, either for power, or for friendship and adulation, or a combination of both.

Desire creates the power.

If I wanted, I could have ruled half of Bombay.

His ambition is to be the spider in the World Wide Web.

All men would be tyrants if they could.

You can have your titular recognition. I'll take money and power.

The only prize much cared for by the powerful is power.

We have, I fear, confused power with greatness.

Great ambition, the desire of real superiority, of leading and directing, seems to be altogether peculiar to man, and speech is the great instrument of ambition.

Power has long been regarded as morally corrosive, and we often suspect the intentions of those who seek it.

Our public figures are often narcissists, utterly self-absorbed in their quest for power.

I like power and I like to use it.

Man is insatiable for power; he is infantile in his desires and, always discontented with what he has, loves only what he has not. People complain of the despotism of princes; they ought to complain of the despotism of man.

To deny we need and want power is to deny that we hope to be effective.

There is a wonderful feeling of power when you're a director, but I don't think I need that, and I'm OK without it.