Power Seeking Quotes

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important

He [Martin Van Buren] is an artful, cunning, intriguing, selfish, speculating lawyer, who, by holding lucrative offices for more than half his life, has contrived to amass a princely fortune, and is now seeking the Presidency, principally for sordid gain, and to gratify the most selfish ambition.

Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.

You don't go into politics unless you want to win.

I think that all politicians who aspire to the presidency are a little nuts, but for different reasons. What kind of person aspires to be the most powerful person in the world? The answer is someone with an internal drive that is so dynamic and so determined.

The desire to look strong and decisive, instead of looking human, is the fatal flaw of so many politicians, and I will never understand why the favoured path of the political class is akin to a child with chocolate smeared on their face insisting that they didn't eat the edible Christmas tree ornaments while their parents slept.

There be some, that taking pleasure in contemplating their own power in the acts of conquest, which they pursue farther than their security requires

Any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy.

No one should be appointed to political office if he is a seeker after it.

Inflammatory passion and selfish interest characterizes most men, whereas ambition characterizes men who pursue and hold national office. Such men rise from the people through a process of self-selection, since politics is a dirty business that discourages all but the most ambitious.

Power is what spoils people. Yes, it seems to me that the seeking after power is the great danger and the great corruptor of mankind.

It is the style of an office seeker rather than that of a soldier.

Men are such power-seeking creatures, and they usually kill people to get to the throne.

I don't seek power and do not run around.

Seeking the office of the Presidency implies that there is something a little bit wrong with you.

It will cost me some struggle to keep from despising the office-seeker.

If you run for mayor, people say you're being egotistical. If you decide you won't run for mayor, people say you're being self-centered and egotistical.

I've never believed in running for office so you can eventually run for some other office.

There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful.

It is a tragedy indeed that new generations, taking office, attribute failures in governance to insufficient power, and seek more of it.

I don't think Trump really believes in all this stuff. But he thinks this would be his ticket to the White House - at least to get the Republican nomination.

My friends are all megalomaniacs - from Damien Hirst to Jack Nicholson - all of them.

It is natural for men to want power. But to seek power actively takes a temperament baffling to both the simple and the wise. The simple cannot fathom how any man would dare presume to prevail, while the wise are amazed that any reasonable man would want the world, assuming he could get it.

Everybody likes to get as much power as circumstances allow, and nobody will vote for a self-denying ordinance.