Real Power Quotes

The franchise itself gives no real power, unless accompanied by the right on the part of all the possessors of it to elect something like an equal number of representatives. ~ John Bright

The President of the Universe holds no real power. His sole purpose is to take attention away from where the power truly exists ... ~ Douglas Adams

In the absence of real power blood seemed the only alternative.
though he could walk away, and had to walk away, he could not walk away with impunity. he could never be a mordantly amused or merely interested observer of the beast. ~ Thomas Williams

Neither, I must say with all due respect, is it the power of teachers and students. Basically the true and real power is with working people of all colors, of all beliefs, of all national origins. ~ Harry Bridges

You know we fixate on the food so much itself: "Oh, the ultimate brownie or the ultimate this or that"
well, let me tell you something: It's all poop in about 12 hours, okay? The real power that food has is its ability to connect human beings to each other
that's the stuff right there and, to me, everything else is secondary to that. ~ Alton Brown

The Internet has the capacity to extend to us genuine choice, and that is not without risk. Real power does entail real responsibility. ~ Nick Harkaway

When we confront facts and fears, we achieve real power and unleash our capacity for change. ~ Margaret Heffernan

Lewis Mumford was not a planner, but he wrote eloquently of planning. It was a difficult task. Planning is an exercise of power, and in a modern state much real power is suffused with boredom. The agents of planning are usually boring; the planning process is boring; the implementation of plans is always boring. In a democracy boredom works for bureaucracies and corporations as smell works for skunk. It keeps danger away. Power does not have to be exercised behind the scenes. It can be open. The audience is asleep. The modern world is forged amidst our inattention. ~ Richard White

I think that the exactitude of the photograph has a sort of compelling nature based in its power to duplicate life. But to me the real power of photography is based in death: the fact that somehow it can enliven that which is not there in a kind of stultifying frightened way, because it seems to me that part of one's life is made up of a constant confrontation with one's own death. ~ Barbara Kruger

[T]he question of the existence of God can be neither asked nor answered. If asked, it is a question about that which by its very nature is above existence, and therefore the answer - whether negative or affirmative - implicitly denies the nature of God. It is as atheistic to affirm the existence of God as it is to deny it. God is being-itself, not a being. On this basis a first step can be taken toward the solution of the problem which usually is discussed as the immanence and the transcendence of God. As the power of being, God transcends every being and also the totality of beings - the world. Being-itself is beyond finitude and infinity; otherwise it would be conditioned by something other than itself, and the real power of being would lie beyond both it and that which conditioned it. Being-itself infinitely transcends every finite being. There is no proportion or gradation between the finite and the infinite. There is an absolute break, an infinite "jump." On the other hand, everything finite participates in being-itself and in its infinity. Otherwise it would not have the power of being. It would be swallowed by nonbeing, or it never would have emerged out of nonbeing. This double relation of all beings to being-itself gives being-itself a double characteristic. In calling it creative, we point to the fact that everything participates in the infinite power of being. In calling it abysmal, we point to the fact that everything participates in the power of being in a finit ~ Paul Tillich

No-mind is consciousness without thought. Only in that way is it possible to think creatively, because only in that way does thought have any real power. Thought alone, when it is no longer connected with the much vaster realm of consciousness, quickly becomes barren, insane, destructive. ~ Eckhart Tolle

Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments, the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents. ~ James Madison

See, one of the serious illusions we live under in the United States, which is a major part of the whole system of indoctrination, is the idea that the government is the power―and the government's not the power, the government is one segment of power. Real power is in the hands of the people who own the society; the state-managers are usually just servants. ~ Noam Chomsky

A photographic portrait is a picture of someone who knows he is being photographed, and what he does with this knowledge is as much a part of the photograph as what he's wearing or how he looks. ~ Richard Avedon

In a brilliant lecture written in 1944, C. S. Lewis described the fatal British obsession with the 'inner ring', the belief that somewhere, just beyond reach, is an exclusive group holding real power and influence, which a certain sort of Englishman constantly aspires to find and join. ~ Ben Macintyre

Some people will say, "Oh, but women have the real power, bottom power." And for non-Nigerians, "bottom power" is an expression in which I suppose means something like a woman who uses her sexuality to get favors from men. But "bottom power" is not power at all. Bottom power means that a woman simply has a good root to tap into, from time to time, somebody else's power. And then of course we have to wonder when that somebody else is in a bad mood, or sick, or impotent. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The real power behind whatever success I have now was something I found within myself - something that's in all of us, I think, a little piece of God just waiting to be discovered. ~ Livy

That's the real power of art, I think. Not to chide but to provoke challenge. Otherwise why bother? ~ Gregory Maguire

Think of your new position as that of a business mercenary; fighting the war for the mighty dollar – after all, it is money that holds all the real power in this world, is it not? ~ D.B. Stephens

If God made no response except to perfect faith, who could hope for help? But God has regard for beginnings, and His eye perceives greatness in the germ. The hand of the woman in the crowd trembled as it was stretched toward Jesus, and the faith back of it was superstitiously reverent, trusting in the virtue of the robe, rather than in the One who wore it; yet the genuineness of that faith; feeble though it was, triumphed in God's loving sight. Real trust is real power, though the heart and hand be feeble. ~ Maltbie Davenport Babcock

In a real fight there is no man or woman! If you don't fight with your real power, that will be the most shameful thing. ~ Roronoa Zoro

unless you fully recognize your complete dependence on God, you cannot know the real power of the Son in his true relationship with the Father. The specialness of God's Sons does not stem from exclusion but from inclusion. All my brothers are special. If they believe they are deprived of anything, their perception becomes distorted. When this occurs the whole family of God, or the Sonship, is impaired in its relationships. ~ Foundation For Inner Peace

If only one fifth of your spells work you have real power. If only one fifth of your divinations work you have a serious disability. ~ Peter J. Carroll

The actions of Napoleon and Alexander, on whose words the event seemed to hang, were as little voluntary as the actions of any soldier who was drawn into the campaign by lot or by conscription. This could not be otherwise, for in order that the will of Napoleon and Alexander (on whom the event seemed to depend) should be carried out, the concurrence of innumerable circumstances was needed without any one of which the event could not have taken place. It was necessary that millions of men in whose hands lay the real power- the soldiers who fired, or transported provisions and guns should consent to carry out the will of these weak individuals, and should have been induced to do so by an infinite number of diverse and complex causes.
We are forced to fall back on fatalism as an explanation of irrational events (that is to say, events the reasonableness of which we do not understand). The more we try to explain such events in history reasonably, the more unreasonable and incomprehensible do they become to us.
Each man lives for himself, using his freedom to attain his personal aims, and feels with his whole being that he can now do or abstain from doing this or that action; but as soon as he has done it, that action performed at a certain moment in time becomes irrevocable and belongs to history, in which it has not a free but a predestined significance.
There are two sides to the life of every man, his individual life, which is the more free the more abstract its ~ Leo Tolstoy

What people instinctively regard as cool is real power - consistency. Pathetic is not cool. Being locked in a tragedy, but not knowing it. That's lameness. ~ Cory Duchesne

Dane discarded his speargun with visible relief. As a paladin of the Church of God Kraken, he had few options. Like many groups devoid of real power and realpolitik, the church was actually constrained by its aesthetics. Its operatives could not have guns, simply, because guns were not squiddy enough.
It was a common moan. Drunk new soldiers of the Cathedral of the Bees might whine: "It's not that I don't think sting-tipped blowpipes aren't cool, it's just ... " "I've gotten rally good with the steam-cudgel," a disaffected Pistonpunk might ask her elders "but wouldn't it be useful to ... ?" Oh for a carbine, devout assassins pined. ~ China Mieville

We are talking about an awesome power. It is the power to weave illusions that appear real as long as they last. That is the very core of the Fed's power. Of course not everyone is instinctively against this illusion-weaving power, and many even welcome it. Tragically, the innocent who understand little about the complexity of the monetary system suffer the most, while those who are in the know reap great profit whether the market is going up or down. ~ Ron Paul

It is important to remember that a thought is harmless unless we believe them and act on them. As the subject, since thoughts are an object of your awareness, you have the power to challenge every thought. You can decide if you want to make that thought real. ~ Elizabeth Thornton

Bad poetry is almost always bad because it attempts to claim for itself the real power of whatever it describes in ten lines: a sky full of stars, first love, or Niagara Falls. ~ Annie Dillard

The real power of this book comes from its documentation from major sources. In fact, you will quickly discover that most of my documents about Jewish Supremacism are from Jewish sources. They argue more convincingly for my point of view than anything I could write. I encourage you to go to the sources that I quote and check them out for yourself. In this book I take you along with me on a fascinating journey of discovery in a forbidden subject. I urge you to courageously keep an open mind while you explore the topics ahead, for that is the only way any of us can find the truth. ~ David Duke

Serving [Hamilton's] legacy didn't just mean commemorating him, though: It also meant continuing his work. [Eliza] crusaded against slavery, as Hamilton had. And this widow of an orphan helped to found the first private orphanage in New York. That's the real power of a legacy: We tell stories of people who are gone because like any powerful stories, they have the potential to inspire, and to change the world. ~ Jeremy McCarter

To remain unknown in this modern world: that, indeed, is real power. ~ Michael Scott

This morning President Obama met with Britain's Prince William in the Oval Office. It was a meeting between a symbolic ruler with no real power and the future king of England. ~ Conan O'Brien

It seems that in the kingdom of Heaven, the cosmic lottery works in reverse; in the kingdom of Heaven, all of our notions of the lucky and the unlucky, the blessed and the cursed, the haves and the have-nots, are turned upside down. In the kingdom of Heaven, the last will be first and the first will be last. In India, I realised that while the poor and oppressed certainly deserve my compassion and help, they do not need my pity. Widows and orphans and lepers and untouchables enjoy special access to the Gospel that I do not have. They benefit immediately from the Good News that freedom is found not in retribution but in forgiveness, that real power belongs not to the strong but to the merciful, that joy comes not from wealth but from generosity. The rest of us have to get used to the idea that we cannot purchase love or fight for peace or find happiness in high positions. Those of us who have never suffered are at a disadvantage because Jesus invites His followers to fellowship in His suffering. In fact, the first thing Jesus did in His sermon on the mount was to mess with our assumptions about the cosmic lottery. In Luke's account, Jesus says, "Blessed are you who are poor for yours is the Kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you wi ~ Rachel Held Evans

Part of what impelled him was stubbornness; resentment, even. The system had filed him among the rejects, and what he was studying was considered - at the decision-making levels, the levels of real power - an archaic waste of time. Well then, he would pursue the superfluous as an end in itself. He would be its champion, its defender and preserver. Who was it who'd said that all art was completely useless? Jimmy couldn't recall, but hooray for him, whoever he was. The more obsolete a book was, the more eagerly Jimmy would add it to his inner collection. ~ Margaret Atwood

We hear wonderful stories about some masters who can walk on water and do all kinds of great things. But the real power of the teacher is to transmit power and knowledge directly to an individual. ~ Frederick Lenz

There are questions of real power and then there are questions of phony authority. You have to break through the phony authority to begin to fight the real questions of power. ~ Karen Nussbaum

This is the real power of habit: the insight that your habits are what you choose them to be. ~ Charles Duhigg

Gods fight, Ragnar went on earnestly, and some win, some lose. The Christian god is losing. Otherwise why would we be here? Why would we be winning? The gods reward us if we give them respect, but the Christian god doesn't help his people, does he? They weep rivers of tears for him, they pray to him, they give him their silver, & we come along & slaughter them! Their god is pathetic. If he had any real power then we wouldn't be here, would we? ~ Bernard Cornwell

You can be inspired by others, but when you're inspired from within then you have real power for change. ~ Sue Fitzmaurice

I have come to know that faith is a real power, not just an expression of belief. ~ Boyd K. Packer

I had a career and I came to motherhood late and am not married and have never had such a trusting relationship with a man - and trust is where the real power of love comes from. ~ Diane Keaton

Real power comes when we stop holding others responsible for our pain, and we take responsibility for all our feelings. ~ Melody Beattie

To achieve, you need thought. You have to know what you are doing and that's real power. ~ Ayn Rand

The real power is not corporate; it is private. They choose not to have a name. It is a dynasty of banking families - Rothschild and Rockefeller being two - that operate chiefly out of London, in the boardrooms out of the city of London and the Bank of England, which they own. ~ Betty Dodson

Magic is attracted to good or bad and intensifies them. It fans the sparks that already lie in a man's character. The real power lies in the silence of your heart. ~ Deepak Chopra

Progressive Conservative candidates from Quebec want to exert real power in Ottawa, not simply be content with playing a secondary role. ~ Kim Campbell

So no, excuse me, we will not play likability anymore. It's an endless runner - a game with no progress and no finish line - that women are expected to chase, that keeps us from doing the real work, accruing the real power. Chasing likability has been one of women's biggest setbacks, by design. I don't know that rejecting likability will get us anywhere, but I know that embracing it has gotten us nowhere. ~ Lindy West

Simply because one is Black or Latino or lesbian or gay or whatever does not guarantee the person's fidelity to a body of politics that empowers the particular constituency that they supposedly represent. The number of black elected officials has risen from 100 in 1964 to more than 9000 today. The number of African Americans who were in congress 30 years ago was about five; today it is over 40, an 800 percent increase. But have Blacks experienced an 800 percent increase in real power? It hasn't happened. So, I think the emphasis of this liberal notion of social change by working solely within the established electoral system is just fatally flawed. ~ Manning Marable

My strength comes from my abdomen. It's the center of gravity and the source of real power. ~ Bruce Lee

The real power of the Buddha was that he had so much love. He saw people trapped in their notions of small separate self, feeling guilty or proud of that self, and he offered revolutionary teachings that resounded like a lion's roar, like a great rising tide, helping people to wake up and break free from the prison of ignorance. ~ Nhat Hanh

Caring about him meant he had real power over her. That he held sway over her heart. ~ Renee Ahdieh

My brother always says that real power is not brokered in public. ~ Terry Goodkind

They were men linked more to one another, their schools, their own social class and their own concerns than they were linked to the country. Indeed, about one of them, Averell Harriman, there would always be a certain taint, as if somehow Averell were a little too partisan and too ambitious (Averell had wanted to be President whereas the rest of them knew that the real power lay in letting the President come to them; the President could take care of rail strikes, minimum wages and farm prices, and they would take care of national security). ~ David Halberstam

When you have no real power, go public
really public. The public is where the real power is. ~ Elizabeth Warren

I feel it now: there's a power in me to grasp and give shape to my world I know that nothing has ever been real without my beholding it. All becoming has need me.. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Options - the ability to choose - is real power. This book is all about how to see and create those options with the least effort and cost. It just so happens, paradoxically, that you can make more money - a lot more money - by doing half of what you are doing now. ~ Timothy Ferriss

Real power is achieved when the ruling class controls the material essentials of life, granting and withholding them from the masses as if they were privileges. ~ George Orwell

Why is it, Master," he asked bitterly, "that despite all a physician is able to do, he is as a leaf before the wind, and the real power lies only with Allah? ~ Noah Gordon

It is from this wide extension of design that so much instruction is derived. It is this which fills the plays of Shakespeare with practical axioms and domestick wisdom. It was said of Euripides, that every verse was a precept and it may be said of Shakespeare, that from his works may be collected a system of civil and oeconomical prudence. Yet his real power is not shown in the splendour of particular passages, but by the progress of his fable, and the tenour of his dialogue; and he that tries to recommend him by select quotations, will succeed like the pedant in Hierocles, who, when he offered his house to sale, carried a brick in his pocket as a specimen. ~ Samuel Johnson

This is the real power of joy, to make us certain that, beneath all grief, the most fundamental of realities is joy itself. ~ Wendy Beckett

An enlightened person has real power and when they think a good thought, the tremendous power of attention causes their students to actually lift up into those states. It brings a power into their lives. ~ Frederick Lenz

(The Queen had real power, and a woman in power, feared as virile, is often accused of being a slut. ~ Susan Sontag

What makes eBay successful - the real value and the real power at eBay - is the community. It's the buyers and sellers coming together and forming a marketplace. ~ Pierre Omidyar

The only real power comes out of a long rifle. ~ Joseph Stalin

I surrendered unto Him all there was of me; everything! Then for the first time I realized what it meant to have real power. ~ Kathryn Kuhlman

When any organizational entity expands beyond 21 members, the real power will be in some smaller body. ~ C. Northcote Parkinson

There are two fools in this world. One is the millionaire who thinks that by hoarding money he can somehow accumulate real power, and the other is the penniless reformer who thinks that if only he can take the money from one class and give it to another, all the world's ills will be cured. ~ Henry Ford

Please, that is so antiquated. The institutions of male supremacy only have real power over you if you buy into that notion. Go found your own club and tell them they can't join. Or better yet, drop the idea of clubs altogether because they're exclusionary, and embrace some other, more flexible way of connecting with people. ~ E. Lockhart

People who have stepped fully into their power know they don't have to push or force things; they know that real power comes from surrender. ~ Renae A. Sauter

You will always be a puppet on someone else's line if you don't care enough about the big picture to let your tiny voice be heard. When it is combined with the tiny voices of millions of others that is the real power. ~ Kenneth Eade

You might be wondering why the Bible instructs us to speak against darkness, rather than think against it, if the real power is in what we think. While it's true that there can be great power in the words that we speak, this is only true when our words reflect our inner-most thoughts, and our inner-most thoughts are the things we believe in our spirit. Our spirit is where faith resides. And it is faith that God and the rest of the spiritual world recognize and respond to. If our words tell a demon to leave, while our spirit is transmitting thoughts of fear, the demon will perceive that we are afraid, and it will not leave. It is only when our words match the thoughts of our spirit - and we are single-minded - that the spirit world responds to what we say. ~ Praying Medic

The real power of comics is writing as you draw. ~ Chris Ware

So, no, this conversation is about gender. Some people will say, "Oh, but women have the real power: bottom power." (This is a Nigerian expression for a woman who uses her sexuality to get things from men.) But bottom power is not power at all, because the woman with bottom power is actually not powerful; she just has a good route to tap another person's power. And then what happens if the man is in a bad mood or sick or temporarily impotent? ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

You can never feel the real power of the mountains until you start climbing their summits! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Jesus also function on the earth through the power of light. Light, illumination, knowledge, insight, understanding, wisdom. That is their real power on earth. ~ Sunday Adelaja

While independent India had been founded by high-born, well-educated men, by the twenty-first century few such types stood for elections, or voted in them, since the wealthy had extra-democratic means of securing their social and economic interests. Across India, poor people were the ones who took the vote seriously. It was the only real power they had. Another ~ Katherine Boo

A picture must possess a real power to generate light and for a long time now I've been conscious of expressing myself through light or rather in light. ~ Henri Matisse

The concurrence of innumerable circumstances was needed without any one of which the event could not have taken place. It was necessary that millions of men in whose hands lay the real power - the soldiers who fired, or transported provisions and guns - should consent to carry out the will of these weak individuals, and should have been induced to do so by an infinite number of diverse and complex causes. We are forced to fall back on fatalism as an explanation of irrational events (that is to say, events the reasonableness of which we do not understand). The more we try to explain such events in history reasonably, the more unreasonable and incomprehensible do they become to us. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Why would a god sacrifice her life if she was God? Just show real power and send an army of angels and there'd be no debate. ~ Peter Tieryas

The Council Wars era from 1983 to 1986 and the brief months from 1986 to 1987 when Mayor Washington gained control over the council were among the most dramatic periods in Chicago's history. Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, women, and homosexuals gained real power at City Hall for the first time. Opposition to Reaganomics and support for the city as a nuclear weapons-free zone were led by the mayor and his department heads, not just opposition groups. The growth machine of the old Chicago regime, which favored urban growth focused on major public works projects and development in the downtown Loop area, was replaced by a balanced program of neighborhood, as well as downtown, economic development.33 ~ Dick Simpson

There is no greater source of strength and power for me in my life than going still, being quiet and recognizing what real power is. ~ Oprah Winfrey

I do not for a moment suggest that Japan should be unmindful of acquiring modern weapons of self-protection. But this should never be allowed to go beyond her instinct of self-preservation. She must know that the real power is not in the weapons themselves, but in the man who wields those weapons ~ Rabindranath Tagore

(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

There has always been a strong relationship between music and religion. It is because they both plug directly into the heart and can have real power for good or evil. ~ Peter Gabriel

The real power, as you and I well know, is collective. I can't afford to be afraid of you, nor your of me. It takes head-on collisions, let's do it" this polite timidity is killing us. ~ Cherrie L Moraga

Joan had told me a story once about some elephants in captivity somewhere, how as babies they were put into ankle cuffs with chains that were attached to spikes driven into the ground, which they couldn't pull out. They stopped trying within their first years, because it was frustrating and pointless, so they grew up believing that the spikes were stronger than they were. Apparently it never occurred to them to try again later when they were giant adult elephants perfectly capable of yanking the spikes out without even exerting much effort and running free into the jungle, so they wound up staying put next to these tiny little spikes that were now ridiculously weak in comparison to their powerful legs. Joan said we were like that, too. She said we humans often remained bound by old beliefs that had not real power aside from that which we placed upon them. She said our fears were the little tiny spikes we were sill seeing from the vantage point of the baby elephants, but now, my darling, she had told me, now we were mighty beasts who could uproot the spike any old time we were ready. (266) ~ Wendy Blackburn

In the ego's world, power means having the ability to control circumstances to your benefit, to manipulate or dominate people in order to get your own way. If what you want is the greatest good for everyone, ego has little to say. The kind of strength that is giving, selfless, devout, trusting, and patient is decidedly feminine. It belongs to saints and mothers. By affirming this kind of strength, you are demonstrating faith that there can be power without aggression, domination, and control. Is there real power in the feminine aspect? Certainly there is, and even though the ego has exercised control for a long time, spiritual power has always been in charge. Spiritual power pervades every aspect of life as the intelligence that nurtures and organizes all forms, atom to cosmos. This power is yours to tap into. It comes from inside, and nothing can stop it once you have found its source in the true self. ~ Deepak Chopra

It is that to which we cling that drags us to the bottom of the abyss. There is real power at having nothing to lose. ~ Richard Paul Evans

This is real power, real strength! Foolish humans, etch my name with fear! Me and, the name of this gun is <> ... <>!! ~ Reki Kawahara

Byron owed the vast influence which he exercised over his contemporaries at least as much to his gloomy egotism as to the real power of his poetry. ~ Thomas B. Macaulay

Anyone can shoot a gun but the real power comes from non-violent means. ~ J.C. Phillips

Real power is not given to us or even created; real power is realized. It comes from realizing an inner sense of peace, self-worth, and happiness. ~ Dean Ornish

The world has become more diversified, with women becoming a real power of change. ~ Dalia Grybauskaite

Real power has to do with one's ability to influence the hearts and minds of others. ~ Dalai Lama

Real power does not consist in the ability to inflict capital punishment upon the subjects, but in the will and the ability to protect the subjects against the world. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

You are Fire!
Don't believe these mere mortals.
They want to put you on a pedestal
and sing paeans to you;
later they would burn you
in the altar of that same fire!

Stand away and stand alone!
You are limitless!
But these mortals can only limit your sky!
You are the Universe!
But they will only give you a little space!
Break free! It's a trap!
They want to cage you!
Because, they are afraid of your real power!

You are a woman.
You are the fire!
You are all conquering.
You are all powerful!

You are Supreme!
You were not born to be a mere beauty queen!! ~ Avijeet Das

Real power comes not from hate, but from truth. ~ Seth Grahame-Smith

Be suspicious of people who have, or crave, power. Never, ever go near power. Don't become friends with anyone who has real power. It's dangerous. ~ Stanley Kubrick

The only contry in the world where there's a majority of women in parliament is Rwanda. Rwanda. That's when women get power, real power - if the men are either dead or in prison. ~ A. L. Kennedy