Toni Morrison Quotes

Once a person insists on how you are to think he immediately begins to insist on how you are to behave.

For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means... the power of some men to make other men what THEY please.

I call the discourse of power any discourse that engenders blame, hence guilt, in its recipient.

The concept of power we admire is power over someone else.

You carry forever the fingerprint that comes from being under someone's thumb.

Fear is something I instill in other people, mostly young girls.

Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart.

Sometimes fear is used as a way to control.

I'd rather control someone than be controlled.

Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

You must labor until we have dominion over the minds and bodies of every important person in your nation.

The effect of dominance is not always the result of an intention to dominate.

As our power over others increases, we become less free; for to retain it, we must make ourselves its servants.

The native must realize that colonialism never gives anything away for nothing.

You can maintain power over people, as long as you give them something. Rob a man of everything, and that man will no longer be in your power.

But, to protect men, we must have the power of controlling them. We must first enslave them before we can protect them.

We do all like to get things inside a barb-wire corral. Especially our fellow-men. We love to round them up inside the barb-wire enclosure of FREEDOM, and make 'em work. Work, you free jewel, WORK! shouts the liberator, cracking his whip.

The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.

Arriane sized her up, tapping one finger against her lips. "Perfect," she said, stepping forward to loop her arm through Luce's. "I was just thinking I could really use a new slave.

Sex, drugs, money, power etc. Just because you get to choose your master doesn't mean you aren't a slave.

Harassment is about power---the undue exercise of power by a superior over a subordinate.

Rulers exist entirely through the persons of others. Their goal is in their subjects, in the activity of enslaving. They are as dependent as the beggar, the social worker and the bandit. The form of dependence does not matter.

Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.

If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.