Carroll Quigley Quotes

Politics and power is a realm of relative influence.

I've been dealing with politicians all my life. All my life. And I've always gotten them to do what I need them to do.

Society receives its momentum from power.

Certainly I shall not be one of those who, having gained power, do not wish to use it.

They who possess the prince possess the laws.

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].

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

Power has to do with whatever decisions men make about the arrangements under which they live and about the events which make up the history of their times.

Politics is who gets what, when, how.

Structure is not about moving boxes around on a chart. Structure is about 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.

Politics is power, and communications is power,

Taking power is fine. But what do you do when you are in power?

Those who have ruled human destinies, like planets, for thousands of years, were not handsome men.

Politicians are there to try to deal with stuff, but sometimes it's both fortunate and unfortunate that people like us have more... not involvement, but more power in the stuff that we say.

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

The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both.

I'm very excited to see where the characters and their relationships go. But in the end, it really boils down to the people who have more power than me, who control the money.

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

I think political people are afraid of me.

Power is a tool, influence is a skill; one is a fist, the other a fingertip.

We're taught Lord Acton's axiom: all power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. I believed that when I started these books, but I don't believe it's always true any more. Power doesn't always corrupt. Power can cleanse. What I believe is always true about power is that power always reveals.

Well, I have an interest in power. I have an interest in people who find themselves in the position to exercise absolute power.