Power Struggle Quotes

Power within
A wiser woman kin
I cannot give her
The proper word
She is worth so much more
She is the one that should be adored ~ Maddy Kobar

Struggle is strengthening. Battling with evil gives us the power to battle evil even more. ~ Ossie Davis

'The Piano Lesson' is very sophisticated, easily the most adult or complex material I've attempted. It's the first film I've written that has a proper story, and it was a big struggle for me to write. It meant I had to admit the power of narrative. ~ Jane Campion

I finally understand the reason it's called power exchange, but with Mount and me, it's more accurately termed a power struggle.
He takes. I fight.
He threatens. I rebel.
He taunts. I argue. ~ Meghan March

This is not to say that power and security are the sole or even the most important objectives of mankind; as a species we prize beauty, truth, and goodness. . . . What the realist seeks to stress is that all these more noble goals will be lost unless one makes provision for one's security in the power struggle among social groups. . . . A moral commitment lies at the heart of realism. . . . What Morgenthau and many other realists have in common is a belief that ethical and political behavior will fail unless it takes into account the actual practice of states and the teachings of sound theory. ~ Robert Gilpin

The Devil is a master of disguise and takes on many forms. He comes to conquer you, steal your joy, kill your spirit, and destroy your faith. When you are doing right, he attacks you from the left but know that God is all powerful and God is in you and that no weapon formed against you shall prosper. ~ C.L. Hall

The struggle for existence holds as much in the intellectual as in the physical world. A theory is a species of thinking, and its right to exist is coextensive with its power of resisting extinction by its rivals. ~ Thomas Huxley

The temple of the most high begins with the body which houses our life, the essence of our existence. Africans are in bondage today because they approach spirituality through religion provided by foreign invaders and conquerors. We must stop confusing religion and spirituality. Religion is a set of rules, regulations and rituals created by humans, which was suppose to help people grow spiritually. Due to human imperfection religion has become corrupt, political, divisive and a tool for power struggle. Spirituality is not theology or ideology. It is simply a way of life, pure and original as was given by the Most High of Creation. Spirituality is a network linking us to the Most High, the universe, and each other… ~ Haile Selassie I

I love being a wife and homemaker - because it's my choice. My husband doesn't expect me to do it. I don't mind doing things for him because he does so much for me; we both feel that way so there is no power struggle. ~ Salma Hayek

As regards the celebrated struggle for life, it seems to me for the present to have been rather asserted than proved. It does occur, but as the exception; the general aspect of life is not hunger and distress, but rather wealth, luxury, even absurd prodigality
where there is a struggle it is a struggle for power. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

When we experience the power of the Self, there is an absence of fear, there is no compulsion to control, and no struggle for approval or external power. ~ Deepak Chopra

We came up with this idea of a power struggle between two people who really love each other, and 'Doll & Em' took off. Calling it by our own names was the director's idea, but hopefully people will understand that we're playing versions of ourselves. ~ Dolly Wells

The world is a dangerous, unstable place and sometimes there are casualties and struggles for power. ~ Greg Bryk

A power struggle is always better than absolute power. ~ Eva Hoffman

The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting ~ Milan Kundera

In England, the struggle between church and kings would take centuries to resolve. Interestingly, in the end, neither institution came out on top. Today, each is as powerless as the other. As people power emerged, we invented politicians. We're not bright. ~ Jodi Taylor

Being a sensitive empath is a beautiful thing as an artist, and it fosters a deep burning curiosity about why we do the things we do. ~ Alanis Morissette

There's a power struggle going on across Europe these days. A few cities are competing against each other to see who shall emerge as the great 21st century European metropolis. Will it be London? Paris? Berlin? Zurich? Maybe Brussels, center of the young union? They all strive to outdo one another culturally, architecturally, politically, fiscally. But Rome, it should be said, has not bothered to join the race for status. Rome doesn't compete. Rome just watches all the fussing and striving, completely unfazed. I am inspired by the regal self-assurance of this city, so grounded and rounded, so amused and monumental, knowing she is held securely in the palm of history. I would like to be like Rome when I am an old lady. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

In the center of the movement, as the motor that swings it onto motion, sits the Leader. He is separated from the elite formation by an inner circle of the initiated who spread around him an aura of impenetrable mystery which corresponds to his "intangible preponderance." His position within this intimate circle depends upon his ability to spin intrigues among its members and upon his skill in constantly changing its personnel. He owes his rise to leadership to an extreme ability to handle inner-party struggles for power rather than to demagogic or bureaucratic-organizational qualities. He is distinguished from earlier types of dictators in that he hardly wins through simple violence. Hitler needed neither the SA nor the SS to secure his position as leader of the Nazi movement; on the contrary, Röhm, the chief of the SA and able to count upon its loyalty to his own person, was one of Hitler's inner-party enemies. Stalin won against Trotsky, who not only had a far greater mass appeal but, as chief of the Red Army, held in his hands the greatest power potential in Soviet Russia at the time. Not Stalin, but Trotsky, moreover, was the greatest organizational talent, the ablest bureaucrat of the Russian Revolution. On the other hand, both Hitler and Stalin were masters of detail and devoted themselves in the early stages of their careers almost entirely to questions of personnel, so that after a few years hardly any man of importance remained who did not owe his position to them. ~ Hannah Arendt

Trying to win a power struggle is like trying to win a nuclear war. You may achieve your goal, but not without catastrophic casualties on both sides. ~ Jamie Raser

A power struggle collapses when you withdraw your energy from it. Power struggles become uninteresting to you when you change your intention from winning to learning about yourself. ~ Gary Zukav

They key of persistence opens all door closed by resistence ~ John Di Lemme

Often men who have been emotionally neglected and abused as children by dominating mothers bond with assertive women, only to have their childhood feelings of being engulfed surface. While they could not 'smash their mommy' and still receive love, they find that they can engage in intimate violence with partners who respond to their acting out by trying harder to connect with them emotionally, hoping that the love offered in the present will heal the wounds of the past. If only one party in the relationship is working to create love, to create the space of emotional connection, the dominator model remains in place and the relationship just becomes a site for continuous power struggle. ~ Bell Hooks

The most momentous fact about the pattern of American politics is that we live under a persistent, obdurate, one might almost say tyrannical, two-party system. We have the Republicans and we have the Democrats, and we have almost no one else, no other strictly political aggregate that amounts to a corporal's guard in the struggle for power. ~ Clinton Rossiter

Differentiating between Power Struggle and Power Over," Hodes explained, "is the difference between Conflict and Abuse." Abuse is Power Over and Conflict is Power Struggle. ~ Sarah Schulman

Art's power of persuasion resides in the small personal details of one's own story, and if it weren't for my struggle with dyslexia, I doubt I'd ever have become a writer or known how to teach others to write. ~ Philip Schultz

I'm calling for dialogue. I'm gathering attention for dialogue which is what you do in a struggle for power. ~ Tupac Shakur

We may not have demon fathers dangling offers of infernal power before us, but everyone understands what it means to struggle with temptation or resist the urge to give in to our baser natures. ~ Jacqueline Carey

The asymmetry of power that cuteness revolves around is another compelling reminder of how aesthetic categories register social conflict. There can be no experience of any person or object as cute that does not somehow call up the subject's sense of power over those who are less powerful. But, as Lori Merish underscores, the fact that the cute object seems capable of making an affective demand on the subject - a demand for care that the subject is culturally as well as biologically compelled to fulfill - is already a sign that "cute" does not just denote a static power differential, but rather a dynamic and complex power struggle. ~ Sianne Ngai

Politicians are very experienced - maybe too experienced - at using body language to signal power and competence. But what these politicians are much more likely to struggle with, or just neglect to do altogether, is communicate warmth and trustworthiness. ~ Amy Cuddy

Some people suggest that the problem is the separation of powers. If you had a parliamentary system, the struggle for power would not result in such complex peace treaties that empower so many different people to pursue so many contradictory aims. ~ James Q. Wilson

Of course I'd been long enough on land to know earthly love, and it had always ended in a battle, in each wanting to be the stronger, the superior in the relation. It is commonly called 'the battle of the sexes,' but I don't know if that is the right term. In truth it's a question of a power struggle, of a battle not to lose oneself, to maintain one's sovereignty - one's property rights. Only the very strong can live with no fear of losing their autonomy. Still, this is the precondition for loving: not to want power - not to want to own someone.
There can be talk of love only when one gives up one's self-assertion, when one lays down arms and capitulates fully. When one no longer defends oneself. Love is the absolute yielding, the total surrender – unconditionally. It knows no reservations, no defense. Love creates no need to be the strongest; it knows no lust for power, no personality struggle. Love is pure devotion, absolute self-surrender. Only one who is strong enough not to fear losing his personality can love. To love, one must be able to forsake oneself, to make the other free. And it is this which we're not strong enough to do. ~ Jens Bjørneboe

When we see the need for deep change, we usually see it as something that needs to take place in someone else. In our roles of authority, such as parent, teacher, or boss, we are particularly quick to direct others to change. Such directives often fail, and we respond to the resistance by increasing our efforts. The power struggle that follows seldom results in change or brings about excellence. One of the most important insights about the need to bring about deep change in others has to do with where deep change actually starts. ~ Robert E. Quinn

The rural Vietnamese was not regarded simply as a pawn in a power struggle but as the active element in the thrust. He was the thrust. ~ Howard Zinn

It is not in the interest of the German people or in the interest of world peace that Germany should become a pawn or a partner in a military struggle for power between the East and the West. ~ James F. Byrnes

The only way to win a power struggle is to give it up. ~ Robert Mandel

For about ten years now, the struggle for democracy and the respect of human rights has been in the focus point - if not a commodity - of political groups aiming to rise to power. ~ Omar Bongo

I believe a family can be like that sports team. A successful family wins as a team. But if its members are intent upon winning their own individual battles with one another, the team loses. A winning solution is to work out the differences and, when it's over, let it be over. Then they can get back in the game as a team. ~ Steve Goodier

How does one go on after doing such unspeakable things? It's
all rather simple, really," he continued, speaking in someone else's voice. "Say to yourself, 'What things?' And it becomes clear ... you are blameless. They brought it on themselves. What have they ever done for you except control your life? They tore you away from your sister; they ripped you from your home. Did you ask to be saved? No! Forget them and start over ... with us, your true family, my Corcitura, my own. ~ Melika Dannese Lux

Prostitution is, essentially, not a capitalist phenomenon but a patriarchal one. It did not automatically occur when people began to buy and sell but is instead rooted in the relationship between men and women. But when prostitution is incorporated an advanced, highly developed market economy, this complex power struggle itself becomes a commodity. Sex is separated from the person and becomes supernatural. ~ Kajsa Ekis Ekman

The genre of narrative business books that I love so much - the ones that have a you-are-there quality - was invented, or so it is said, in 1982 by David McClintick, who wrote 'Indecent Exposure,' a rollicking good read about a Hollywood scandal and the ultimate boardroom power struggle at Columbia Pictures. ~ Andrew Ross Sorkin

The business manager was doing fine back in his office while they were out on the line, hungry. And, so they started to see a lot of that and there was, that maybe the leadership had its own cause. More so than the miners, you know, it was like a power struggle. ~ Richard Grimes

If America would withdraw from South Korea, there could be a power struggle between such as China and Japan. ~ Kim Dae-jung

You cannot avoid the interplay of politics within an orthodox religion. The power struggle permeates the training, education and disciplining of the orthodox community. Because of this pressure, the leaders of such a community inevitably much face that ultimate internal question: to succumb to complete opportunism as the price of maintaining their rule, or risk sacrificing themselves for the sake of the orthodox ethic. ~ Frank Herbert

You can tell people of the need to struggle, but when the powerless start to see that they really can make a difference, nothing can quench the fire. ~ Leymah Gbowee

A spiritual partnership is a partnership between equals for the purpose of spiritual growth. Spiritual partners use their delightful experiences together as well as their power struggles to learn about themselves and change themselves. ~ Gary Zukav

Religious power, which, as I have already said, frequently identifies itself with political power, has always been a protagonist of this bitter struggle, even when it seemingly was neutral. ~ Salvatore Quasimodo

Disobedience is essentially a prideful power struggle against someone in authority over us. It can be a parent, a priesthood leader, a teacher, or ultimately God. A proud person hates the fact that someone is above him. He thinks this lowers his position. ~ Ezra Taft Benson

Earlier, she asked if I would die for her. Without hesitation, I said that I would - and meant it. I don't understand either my reaction to her or the source of her power. She is something other than she appears to be. She tells me that I already know what she is and that I only need to accept the knowledge that I already possess. ~ Dean Koontz

I think that the United States has always been most effective when it is leading both from power and principle. ~ Condoleezza Rice

Religion is a very scary thing, because a pastor is in a position of power. And if you use that power badly, you ruin people's lives, and you ruin your own life. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

The supremacy of expediency is being refuted by time and truth. Time is an essential dimension of existence defiant of man's power, and truth reigns in supreme majesty, unrivaled, inimitable, and can never be defeated. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

The diagnosis shouldn't have surprised me, as we had been talking about my symptoms for so long. But it's easier to think you just have a bunch of parts inside. Everyone says things like "A part of me wants to go to the movies, but another part of me wants to just stay home." Using the term "part" made me feel normal. I knew I was a little different in that my parts were quite separate aspects of me. I knew my consciousness wasn't whole and knew that it was unusual to have some thoughts come to me in Spanish. I knew most people didn't experience terror and struggle to catch their breath when they were in benign situations. But we hadn't been calling this DID, so I'd been able to avoid fully accepting the implications of having these special parts. ~ Olga Trujillo

Our destiny is not mapped out for us by some exterior power; we map it out for ourselves. What we think and do in the present determines what shall happen to us in the future. ~ Christian D. Larson

I believe in the power of great art to transcend geographical boundaries, political differences and even the restrictions of time. ~ Armand Hammer

A huge part of losing weight is believing you have the power to do it. ~ Debasish Mridha

Tonight, somewhere in America, a young person, let's say a young man, will struggle to fall to sleep, wrestling alone with a secret he's held as long as he can remember. Soon, perhaps, he will decide it's time to let that secret out. What happens next depends on him, his family, as well as his friends and his teachers and his community. But it also depends on us
on the kind of society we engender, the kind of future we build. ~ Barack Obama

As you age, you start to realize that your emotions are in your hands and not someone else's. Once you put them in someone else's hands, that's when you give them the power, and you can't change it. Only they can change it. ~ Keke Palmer

To one man a stream is so much water-power, to another a rendezvous for lovers. ~ George Henry Lewes

She tore off his grip, and then she was walking out the kitchen door, across the courtyard, through the ward-stones, and along the invisible barrier- until she found a spot just out of sight of the fortress.
The world was full of screaming and wailing, so loud she drowned in it.
Celaena did not utter a sound as she unleashed her magic on the barrier, a blast that shook the trees and set the earth rumbling. She fed her power into the invisible wall, begging the ancient stones to take it, to use it. The wards, as if sensing her intent, devoured her power whole, absorbing every last ember until it flickered, hungry for more.
So she burned and burned and burned. ~ Sarah J. Maas

She didn't need to be someone else. She needed to use her power to make the world a better place. ~ Aaron Starmer

If you must then hire for passion first, experience second and credentials third. Then train those hired for directed passion, dropping the excess baggage and the whole process of unlearning. An entrepreneur is much like an architect shapping human resources into a well crafted power house. ~ Nikhil Sharda

This is ten percent luck, Twenty percent skill, Fifteen percent power of will, Five percent pleasure, Fifty percent pain, and a hundred percent reason to remember the name. ~ Mike Shinoda

Life is one long struggle between conclusions based on abstract ways of conceiving cases, and opposite conclusions prompted by our instinctive perception of them. ~ William James

A nation's strength ultimately consist in what it can do on its own and not in what it can borrow from other. ~ Indira Gandhi

I think Michael Moore is an amazing man - an amazing, brave man. And I think people are probably going to start saying, 'Don't associate with Cindy Sheehan.' People who speak truth to power somehow are marginalized in this country. ~ Cindy Sheehan

Martyrs, you see, are like bees. Their only power comes in death. How many of you would sacrifice yourself not to kill, but merely hurt your enemy? ~ Pierce Brown

Leadership is found in the action to defeat that which would defeat you ... You are made by the struggles you choose. ~ C. T. Vivian

...nothing is more blissful than to occupy the heights effectively fortified by the teaching of the wise, tranquil sanctuaries from which you can look down upon others and see them wandering everywhere in their random search for the way of life, competing for intellectual eminence, disputing about rank, and striving night and day with prodigious effort to scale the summit of wealth and to secure power. O minds of mortals, blighted by your blindness! Amid what deep darkness and daunting dangers life's little day is passed! To think that you should fail to see that nature importantly demands only that the body may be rid of pain, and that the mind, divorced from anxiety and fear, may enjoy a feeling of contentment! ~ Titus Lucretius Carus

He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

I know all about the power imbalance that exists every time you meet someone who's seen you at yourmost vulnerable, whether or not it was your choice in the first place. How you have to hope that they don't use it against you in some way. ~ Ella Berman

The toughest thing about the power of trust is that it's very difficult to build and very easy to destroy. The essence of trust building is to emphasize the similarities between you and the customer. ~ Thomas J. Watson

(Democracy: a brilliant invention, that Penbury wished he had thought of, whereby citizens could voice their political will on pieces of paper, which actually gave them little or no choice, that were then deposited in a sealed box which, when opened elsewhere, were emptied onto the nearest fire and ignored while the politicians brokered real power between themselves. Genius.) ~ Paul Dale

Instead he thinks up the worst ending imaginable: Hemingway has Catherine die from
hemorrhaging after their child is stillborn. It is the most torturous ending I have ever
experienced and probably will ever experience in literature, movies, or even television.
I am crying so hard at the end, partly for the characters, yes, but also because Nikki
actually teaches this book to children. I cannot imagine why anyone would want to
expose impressionable teenagers to such a horrible ending. Why not just tell high school
students that their struggle to improve themselves is all for nothing? ~ Matthew Quick

We cannot remove the evils of capitalism without taking its source of power: ownership. ~ Neil Kinnock

in the first place, Majesty, a pyramid is power. It is repression,force,and wealth. But it is just as much: domination of the rabble; the narrowing of its mind; the weakening of its will; monotony; and waste. O my Pharaoh, it is your most reliable guardian. Your secret police. Your army. Your fleet. Your harem. The higher it is, the tinier your subjects will seem. And the smaller your subjects, the more you rise, o Majesty, to your full height. ~ Ismail Kadare

He recognizes the moving parts in a complex situation, sees how the pieces fit together, and devises the most appropriate response, considering not just the military element but also the economic and political aspects of a problem. "He'd see the necessary integration of the tools of American power, not just military power," Lee Hamilton says. "And he had a keen sense of the limitations of military power."8 ~ Bartholomew Sparrow

Your true power lies in how you respond to life's curves. Your best choice of course ... is to always keep your joy ~ Timothy Pina

Inwardly you are God, outwardly you are a person. Instead of thinking you are just a person, that appearance, you can awake to the power behind you, the safety within you, the source of inspiration and guidance at the heart of your human life. This enables you to be yourself even more so. ~ Douglas Harding

Power was attractive for a reason. ~ Kit Rocha

But that is who we are, that is where we come from. We are the offspring of metropolitan annihilation and destruction, of the war of all against all, of the conflict of each individual with every other individual, of a system governed by fear, of the compulsion to produce, of the profit of one to the detriment of others, of the division of people into men and women, young and old, sick and healthy, foreigners and Germans, and of the struggle for prestige. Where do we come from? From isolation in individual row-houses, from the suburban concrete cities, from prison cells, from the asylums and special units, from media brainwashing, from consumerism, from corporal punishment, from the ideology of nonviolence, from depression, from illness, from degradation, from humiliation, from the debasement of human beings, from all the people exploited by imperialism. ~ Ulrike Marie Meinhof