John Petit-Senn Quotes

The wielders of power did not speak for it, nor did they naturally serve it. Their interest was to use and develop power, no less natural and necessary than liberty but more dangerous.

What is 'power' anyway? Power is an ego trip. Power is a way to rise yourself up by lowering others, and I want nothing of it.

Power wears out those who do not have it.

Politics isn't about left versus right; it's about top versus bottom.

It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.

Sometimes I think the world is divided into those who have a comfortable relationship with power and those who have a naturally adversarial relationship with power.

The paradox of American democracy has been that its slogan of equal opportunity has meant, often, equal opportunity to get power over your fellows.

The sudden acquisition of power by those who have never had it before can be intoxicating and we run the risk of petty power games ...

Oppression is the essence of power.

I only want to debate people who are more powerful than I am.

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.

Authority is supposedly grounded in wisdom, but I could see from a very early age that authority was only a system of control. And it didn't have any inherent wisdom. I quickly realized that you either became a power or you were crushed.

My experience with power, you can maintain it, or you get it taken from you. You get you some newfound power and go crazy, and it get taken from you quick.

My father was a dictator in the true German sense. He suppressed my mother.

Man is born to seek power, yet his actual condition makes him a slave to the power of others.

As a result of the prison study, I really became more aware of the central role of power in our lives. I became more aware of the power I have as a teacher. I started consciously doing things to minimize the negative use of power in the classroom. I encouraged students to challenge me.

It's human nature to abuse power, no matter who you are.

Power is supposed to be so corrupt. I don't think it's so much corrupt, in the usual sense of the word, as stupid and unrealistic. The more power a person has, the further he gets from reality.

Power is what men seek, and any group that gets it will abuse it. It is the same story.

There are a lot of people who want to give orders and be bossy that don't deserve respect.

Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

One cannot hold power and not use it.

I'm scared of people with power making the decision.

The less the power, the greater the desire to exercise it.

Control over a woman is the only form of dominance most men possess, for most men are merely subjects of more powerful men.