Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Authority is not a quality one person 'has', in the sense that he has property or physical qualities. Authority refers to an interpersonal relation in which one person looks upon another as somebody superior to him.

Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society.

People of excellence will always be brought before people of influence.

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.

The great principle of Western society is that competition rules here as it rules in everything else. The best man - that is to say, the strongest and cleverest - is likely to get the best woman, in the sense of the most beautiful person.

To some people, power is a noun. To others, it's a verb.

I like power and I like to use it.

The way to have power is to take it.

'Tis hard to comprehend how one man can come to be master of many, equal to himself in right, unless it be by consent or by force.

Like most animals, we're wired to associate height with power.

Yes, I believe that the art of winning is through intimidation, and not necessarily do you have to speak about it.

In nominating young women and men to our service academies, it must only be about who you are, not who you know.

Power is the chance to impose your will within a social context, even when opposed and regardless of the integrity of that chance.

The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world.

Every society naturally divides itself into classes. The author of nature has bestowed on some greater capacities than on others--birth, education, talents and wealth, create distinctions among men as visible and of as much influence as titles, stars and garters. In every society, men of this class will command a superior degree of respect--and if the government is so constituted as to admit but few to exercise the powers of it, it will, according to the natural course of things, be in their hands.

The best jobs will go to the best educated people.

Society receives its momentum from power.

He who demands does not command.

Individuals often exercise considerable influence upon the fate of society, but this influence is determined by the internal structure of that society and by its relation to other societies

Men are marked out from the moment of birth to rule or to be ruled.

They who possess the prince possess the laws.

The opinion of the strongest is always the best.

I do understand power, whatever else may be said about me. I know where to look for it and how to use it.

Men love power.