The Powers That Be Quotes

People want everything to come out of a drive thru window. They want it instant and they want it fast. I succumb to that, we all succumb to that. We're in it. That's the culture. So the enemy, the powers that be, the manipulators behind the scenes play to our natural weaknesses. ~ Alex Jones

I can't compete and when I do, the rules of engagement change in the middle of the game. I'll let the powers that be vanquish themselves and return in three to five years to sift through the remains. ~ Ayn Rand

All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume. ~ Noam Chomsky

Try to reject war and give peace a chance. Question the powers that be and find out why they make the dubious decisions they do that send young people to war. ~ Helen Thomas

If someone wanted to have a grudge against me, or didn't agree with my lifestyle, the way I breathed, the space I took up on this planet, they had an open door to 'report' to the powers that be. ~ Mark Alders

Still, these days when I daydream about the movie, I don't think about the big picture. It's more fun for me to think of little things that would add to the movie. I like to think the powers that be would let me amuse myself with some small things in order to shut me up while they re-write the screenplay to turn Kvothe into a lesbian, shape-changing unicorn.
~ Patrick Rothfuss

The fact is that all the important political philosophers and scientists from the great Aristotle on, with the exception of those of the French Enlightenment and Mill, have sided with the powers that be. ~ Mario Bunge

There is a problem on the so-called commercial stage in New York. The price of a ticket is exorbitant, and there are no longer original productions possible, apparently, on the commercial stage. They are all plays that were taken from either England or smaller theaters, off-Broadway theaters, and so on. The one justification there used to be for the commercial theater was that it originated everything we had, and now it originates nothing. But the powers that be seem perfectly content to have it that way. They don't risk anything anymore, and they simply pick off the cream. ~ Arthur Miller

In the official imperial theology, the titles "Son of God" and "Lord" usually applied to the emperor and the word "gospel" referred to his achievements. By speaking of Jesus in these terms, Paul was tacitly inviting the Roman community to declare its loyalty to the true ruler of the universe. Members were to become co-conspirators with him in acknowledging that, unbeknownst to the powers that be, a fundamental change had occurred when God had vindicated the crucified Messiah.49 ~ Karen Armstrong

Grace does not contest the powers-that-be through an effective show of verifiable strength but through a persistent and subversive recoding of how one defines what strength and weakness are. ~ Adam Miller

The powers that be don't want athletes or boxers to become as smart as they are. ~ Bernard Hopkins

We know that's the bottom line: if money is made, the powers that be pay attention. ~ Regina King

The "Powers That Be" are not smart enough to engineer Armageddon, but they may yet be stupid enough. If governments are involved in covering up the knowledge of aliens, then they are doing a much better job of it than they seem to do at anything else. ~ Stephen Hawking

The most dangerous thing in American society is a self-respecting and self-loving black person, because they're on the road to freedom and that means they're gonna run up against the powers that be. ~ Cornel West

The whole 'serious artist' thing is very damaging. The powers that be will steer you towards your own demise. One thing I've learned is that it's not very glamourous, and my problems are no different from anybody else's. ~ Dave Gahan

I love the fact publishers are still publishing unprofitable material. It's a challenge to the powers that be. It's saying there is a real literature in this country and we will keep publishing it. ~ Alan Lightman

The two men had a conversation. Brief, cryptic, to the point. As though they had exchanged numbers and not words. No explanations seemed necessary. They were not friends, Comrade Pillai and Inspector Thomas Mathew, and they didn't trust each other. But they understood each other perfectly. They were both men whom childhood had abandoned without a trace. Men without curiosity. Without doubt. Both in their own way truly, terrifyingly adult. They looked out at the world and never wondered how it worked, because they knew. They worked it. They were mechanics who serviced different parts of the machine. ~ Arundhati Roy

In this atmosphere of general discouragement, it is tempting to attack something that is sufficiently linked to the powers-that-be so as not to appear very sympathetic, but sufficiently weak to be a more-or-less accessible target (since the concentration of power and money are beyond reach). Science fulfills these conditions, and this partly explains the attacks against it. ~ Alan Sokal

I think the greatest legacy of the 1960s was the general feeling that not only can you fight the powers that be, but you can win. ~ Abbie Hoffman

Strangely, the subsequent AIDS works that have become iconic in our culture rarely mention the movement, or the engaged community of lovers, but both formations were inseparable from the crisis itself. Now, looking back, I fear that the story of the isolated helpless homosexual was one far more palatable to the corporations who control the reward system in the arts.The more truthful story of the American mass - abandoning families, criminal governments, indifferent neighbors - is too uncomfortable and inconvenient to recall. The story of how gay people who were despised, had no rights, and carried the burden of a terrible disease came together to force the country to change against its will, is apparently too implicating to tell. Fake tales of individual heterosexuals heroically overcoming their prejudices to rescue helpless dying men with AIDS was a lot more appealing to the powers that be, but not at all true. ~ Sarah Schulman

I was coming to be an adult, the AIDS epidemic happened. Moving to New York, watching that unfold, and watching the activism around that ... it was complete chaos of life, and then this horrific non-response from the powers that be. There was a lot of misery and sadness tied up in that. ~ Kelly Reichardt

When we started filming, I tried to keep myself well under the radar so that the powers that be wouldn't notice that I hadn't lost the weight they'd asked me to. I only weighed 110 pounds to begin with, but I carried about half of them in my face. I think they may have put those buns on me so they might function as bookends, keeping my face right where it was, between my ears and no bigger. ~ Carrie Fisher

That's the way it is. If you believe in something your very belief renders you unqualified to do it. Your earnestness will come across. Your passion will show. Your enthusiasm will make everyone nervous. And your naivety will irritate. Which means that you will become suspect. Which means you will be prone to disillusionment. Which means that you will not be able to sustain your belief in the face of all the piranha fish which nibble away at your idea and your faith, 'till only the skeleton of your dream is left. Which means that you have to become a fanatic, a fool, a joke, an embarrassment. The world - which is to say the powers that be - would listen to your ardent ideas with a stiff smile on its face, then put up impossible obstacles, watch you finally give up your cherished idea, having mangled it beyond recognition, and after you slope away in profound discouragement it will take up your idea, dust it down, give it a new spin, and hand it over to someone who doesn't believe in it at all. ~ Ben Okri

Perhaps the best definition of progress would be the continuing efforts of men and women to narrow the gap between the convenience of the powers that be and the unwritten charter. ~ Nadine Gordimer

To embrace the strategy of Jesus is to be engaged in what Dean Brackley calls "downward mobility." Our locating ourselves with those who have been endlessly excluded becomes an act of visible protest. For no amount of our screaming at the people in charge to change things can change them. The margins don't get erased by simply insisting that the powers-that-be erase them. The trickle-down theory doesn't really work here. The powers bent on waging war against the poor and the young and the "other" will only be moved to kinship when they observe it. Only when we can see a community where the outcast is valued and appreciated will we abandon the values that seek to exclude. ~ Greg Boyle

If our research leads us to a result that reduces religion to the status of a neurosis of mankind and explains it's grandiose powers in the same way as we sould neurotic obsession in our individual patients, then we may be sure we shall incur in this country the greatest resentment of the powers that be. ~ Sigmund Freud

Might as well go out flipping the bird to the powers that be killing us. ~ Rachel Caine

All the world, as a matter of fact, is a mosaic of little places invisible to the powers that be. And in the eyes of the powers that be all these invisible places do not add up to a visible place. They add up to words and numbers. ~ Wendell Berry

I am an old, old friend of Aaron Sorkin's, who is the executive producer and writer. He had been talking about doing a political show for a long time and I had been interested in it for a long time. The moment I became available, he called me last year and asked me if I wanted to do it and then I just had to audition for the powers that be, and I got it. ~ Bradley Whitford

If there's a world here in a hundred years, it's going to be saved by tens of millions of little things. The powers-that-be can break up any big thing they want. They can corrupt it or co-opt it from the inside, or they can attack it from the outside. But what are they going to do about 10 million little things? They break up two of them, and three more like them spring up! ~ Pete Seeger

Let's be honest. The powers that be all of a sudden realize that there's a lot of money to be made from the Latino market. It all comes down to economics. That's what's happening. So what! We're in style. I mean, that's silly, but I'm taking full advantage of that. ~ Paula Garces

Twas a cold Yuletide evening, and I wandered the stacks, shelving multiple titles that the patrons brought back. We toiled overtime at our library here, 'cause the powers that be cut our staffing this year. ~ David Davis

The apostle enters upon his subject thus - Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers; for there is no power but of God: the powers that be, are ordained of God. ~ Jonathan Mayhew

I was cut out of The Doors. I was Okie Girl, a groupie. The powers that be thought that my character made Jim Morrison look too sleazy, if you can imagine. I saw the movie-it was so loud I had a headache for three days. ~ Jennifer Tilly

The problem with a small town is that when you don't buy into the powers that be there are very few other choices. It's like a play where there is only a "virtuous" lead, a villain, and bit players. Better to be the villain because you're not duped into believing you're in more than a play, and at least your name goes on the program. ~ Catherine Gildiner

Hegel, installed from above, by the powers that be, as the certified Great Philosopher, was a flat-headed, insipid, nauseating, illiterate charlatan who reached the pinnacle of audacity in scribbling together and dishing up the craziest mystifying nonsense. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Better to be always in a minority of one with God - branded as madman, incendiary, fanatic, heretic, infidel - frowned upon by "the powers that be," and mobbed by the populace - or consigned ignominiously to the gallows, like him whose "soul is marching on," though his "body lies mouldering in the grave," or burnt to ashes at the stake like Wickliffe, or nailed to the cross like him who "gave himself for the world," - in defence of the RIGHT, than like Herod, having the shouts of a multitude crying, "It is the voice of a god, and not of a man! ~ William Lloyd Garrison

Don't Go With The Flow. The Powers That Be Turn The Taps ~ Dean Cavanagh

The powers that be no longer have to stifle information. They can now overload us with so much of it, there's no way to know what's factual or not. The ability to be an informed public is only going to worsen with advancing deep fake technology.

Incriminating audio and video will hold even less weight than it already does. A government doesn't have to lie to its people or censor its enemies when no one believes a thing to begin with.

We're entering the Post-Information Age. ~ J. Andrew Schrecker

I had forgotten that God, or the world, or whatever carves the rules in stone, doesn't give you time off for good behavior. ~ Tana French

Economics was largely a form of intellectual prostitution where you got rewarded for saying what the powers that be wanted to hear. ~ Max Tegmark

Among living artists, George Condo may be the most embraced by the powers that be. ~ Jerry Saltz

The powers that be understand that sexual freedom or liberation with any kind of joy means they are losing control. ~ Betty Dodson

If the education of our kids comes from radio, television, newspapers - if that's where they get most of their knowledge from, and not from the schools, then the powers that be are definitely in charge, because they own all those outlets. ~ Maynard James Keenan

It's very much a back and forth conversation between the fans and the writers, between the writers and the powers that be. Their opinions, especially when expressed online or via correspondence, are important and are taken into consideration. ~ Wentworth Miller

If the powers that be really knew how much time I spent thinking about and researching celebrities, they probably wouldn't let me anywhere near the red carpet. But, please promise not to tell them. I'm harmless, I swear. ~ Ross Mathews

The powers that be are trying to meld, shape, and corral the culture of hip-hop into another speaking voice for the government. ~ Chuck D

I have mixed feelings about 'Car 54, Where Are You?' Because we shot it as a musical and whoever the studio head was at Orion, or whoever the powers that be were, cut all but, like, two musical numbers out of it. That is the same as cutting the musical numbers out of 'The Wizard Of Oz'; it wouldn't be that interesting. ~ John C. McGinley

I have been ranting and raving about this ever since the idea of the Cloud Ark was announced. So far all I get in return, from the powers that be, are vague answers and hand-wavy happy talk. ~ Neal Stephenson

Let every soul be in subjection to the higher powers: for there is no power but of God; and the powers that be are ordained of God. Therefore he that resisteth the power, withstandeth the ordinance of God: and they that withstand shall receive to themselves judgment. ~ Watchman Nee

Then he started his period. One week in bed. Two doctors in. Three painkillers four times a day. And later a letter to the powers that be demanding full-paid menstrual leave twelve weeks per year I see him still, his selfish pale face peering at the moon through the bathroom window. The curse, he said, the curse. ~ Carol Ann Duffy

So I looked with fascination at those people in their mobes, and tried to fathom what it would be like. Thousands of years ago, the work that people did had been broken down into jobs that were the same every day, in organizations where people were interchangeable parts. All of the story had been bled out of their lives. That was how it had to be; it was how you got a productive economy. But it would be easy to see a will at work behind this: not exactly an evil will, but a selfish will. The people who'd made the system thus were jealous, not of money and not of power but of story. If their employees came home at day's end with interesting stories to tell, it meant that something had gone wrong: a blackout, a strike, a spree killing. The Powers That Be would not suffer others to be in stories of their own unless they were fake stories that had been made up to motivate them. People who couldn't live without story had been driven into the concents or into jobs like Yul's. All others had to look somewhere outside of work for a feeling that they were part of a story, which I guessed was why Saeculars were so concerned with sports, and with religion. How else could you see yourself as part of an adventure? Something with a beginning, middle, and end in which you played a significant part? We avout had it ready-made because we were a part of this project of learning new things. Even if it didn't always move fast enough for people like Jesry, it did move. You could tell where you we ~ Neal Stephenson

The country is in deep trouble. We've forgotten that a rich life consists fundamentally of serving others, trying to leave the world a little better than you found it. We need the courage to question the powers that be, the courage to be impatient with evil and patient with people, the courage to fight for social justice. In many instances we will be stepping out on nothing, and just hoping to land on something. But that's the struggle. To live is to wrestle with despair, yet never allow despair to have the last word. ~ Cornel West

Simply put, we have to take charge and take responsibility and support what's in the marketplace. Because, quiet as it's kept, the powers that be are cognizant of what our spending dollar means. And it is kept a little quiet, and we have to become aware of what we mean in the marketplace and take advantage of it. ~ Richard Roundtree

Apocalyptic shows us what we're not seeing. It can't be composed or spoken by the powers that be, because they are the sustainers of "the way things are" whose operation justifies itself by crowning itself as "the way things ought to be" and whose greatest virtue is in being "realistic." Thinking through what we mean by "realistic" is where apocalyptic begins. ~ David Dark

The great masses always and at once respond to the force of gravity in the direction of the powers that be. ~ Stefan Zweig

We even save a few lives, but only a fraction of the lives that need to be saved. Soon, we will leave and when we leave there will be nothing to take our place. The meningitis epidemic, cholera, measles, typhoid fever, all preventable diseases, will return and continue as before. The only solution is a political solution, national public health programs, responsible corporations who reap only as much as they sow. Shell Oil with a conscience. Nigeria doesn't need us. What we do here is less than nothing. We take the pressure off the powers that be, making it easier for those who plunder to keep on plundering. This is the humanitarian aid paradox. ~ Pamela Grim

I'm saying it's so big and audacious that we'll most likely never be suspected. I'm saying that even if we are, the powers that be will realize that it can never be conclusively proven. I'm saying that a consensus of denial will build off of it. I'm saying that people will want to remember the man as something he wasn't. I'm saying that we'll present them with an explanation and the powers that be will prefer it to the truth, even though they know better."
Marcello said, "Do it. Make it happen ~ James Ellroy

We have entered an era vibrating with the din of small voices. Every citizen can be a reporter, can take on the powers that be. ~ Matt Drudge

I'm a Christian first, and a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative second, and don't you ever forget it. You know who else was kind of "divisive" in terms of challenging the status quo and the powers-that-be of his day? Jesus Christ. ~ Ann Coulter

And with the Occupy Movement, it's really ironic how the police come as representatives and enforcers of the powers that be, even though the people in the Occupy Movement are really on their side - not in terms of their behavior, but in terms of their economic status, in terms of who the police are in society and how much they're paid, and if you boil it down to the economics of it, the police should be out there marching with the Occupy Movement. ~ Oren Moverman

You look concerned," Roshaun said from behind her.
Dairine scowled over her shoulder at him. "The whole universe is in danger," she said, "and we're not sure how to save it, assuming it can be saved. One of the Powers That Be has stuffed secret messages into my brain without telling me. And a friend of mine who happens to be my wizard's manual is being reprogrammed with software that even these guys haven't had time to beta test! Wow, Roshaun, why would I need to be concerned?"
Roshaun glanced at the ground. Another chair appeared for him, a slight distance from Dairine's. He lowered himself into it, stretching out his legs with a sigh. "Sarcasm," he said, "Amusing, if ineffective. ~ Diane Duane

GONE. You're gone.
...Another case of not getting what I thought I wanted. Instead I'll get what I'm supposed to have because the Powers That Be can make better decisions for me than I can. ~ Kate McGahan

I reached the age of 70, because I have cultivated an association of multicultural intellectuals who are informed and alert to whatever "tricknology" that's laid on us by the powers that be. These include White ethnic intellectuals- people who know their roots- as well as Native American, Asian American, Hispanic and Black intellectuals. These are thirty, forty-year associations with some of the best minds around. Minds that are ignored by the media. ~ Ishmael Reed

We need to make sure that the powers that be know that arts education is as vital and as important as geography and arithmetic. You know, it is a part of the spiritual and the soulful experience and expression of being human and it is a necessity, as necessary as water, as breathing air. ~ Rosie O'Donnell

The powers that be have a way of outlawing many beautiful things made by ordinary people. I don't know why that should be, I only know it is. ~ Stephen King

The powers-that-be understand that to create the appropriate atmosphere for war, it's necessary to create within the general populace a hatred, fear or mistrust of others regardless of whether those others belong to a certain group of people or to a religion or a nation. ~ James Morcan

I'm a product of its [american] teaching, of its thinking, of its -isms, of its religion, of its education. I am conditioned, raised and developed by America; I am America. And as it changes, my thoughts also change. Because no matter what I believe, what the powers-that-be believe will affect me. ~ Erykah Badu

I had learned and written too much history not to know that the great masses always and at once respond to the force of gravity in the direction of the powers that be. I knew that the same voices which yelled "Heil Schuschnigg" today would thunder "Heil Hitler" tomorrow. ~ Stefan Zweig

Thousands of years ago, the work that people did had been broken down into jobs that were the same every day, in organizations where people were interchangeable parts. All of the story had been bled out of their lives. That was how it had to be; it was how you got a productive economy. But it would be easy to see a will at work behind this: not exactly an evil will, but a selfish will. The people who'd made the system thus were jealous, not of money and not of power but of story. If their employees came home at day's end with interesting stories to tell, it meant that something had gone wrong: a blackout, a strike, a spree killing. The Powers That Be would not suffer others to be in stories of their own unless they were fake stories that had been made up to motivate them. People who couldn't live without story had been driven into the concents or into jobs like Yul's. All others had to look somewhere outside of work for a feeling that they were part of a story, which I guessed was why Saeculars were so concerned with sports, and with religion. How else could you see yourself as part of an adventure? Something with a beginning, middle, and end in which you played a significant part? We avout had it ready-made because we were a part of this project of learning new things. Even if it didn't always move fast enough for people like Jesry, it did move. You could tell where you were and what you were doing in that story. Yul got all of this for free by living his stories from day to ~ Neal Stephenson

When we approach love and creativity with the level of conviction that the powers-that-be in the world today are approaching hatred and destruction, then and only then will we have a chance. ~ Marianne Williamson

Under conditions of a truly human existence, the difference between succumbing to disease at the age of ten, thirty, fifty, or seventy, and dying a "natural" death after a fulfilled life, may well be a difference worth fighting for with all instinctual energy. Not those who die, but those who die before they must and want to die, those who die in agony and pain, are the great indictment against civilization. They also testify to the unredeemable guilt of mankind. Their death arouses the painful awareness that it was unnecessary, that it could be otherwise. It takes all the institutions and values of a repressive order to pacify the bad conscience of this guilt. Once again, the deep connection between the death instinct and the sense of guilt becomes apparent. The silent "professional agreement" with the fact of death and disease is perhaps one of the most widespread expressions of the death instinct -- or, rather, of its social usefulness. In a repressive civilization, death itself becomes an instrument of repression. Whether death is feared as constant threat, or glorified as supreme sacrifice, or accepted as fate, the education for consent to death introduces an element of surrender into life from the beginning -- surrender and submission. It stifles "utopian" efforts. The powers that be have a deep affinity to death; death is a token of unfreedom, of defeat. Theology and philosophy today compete with each other in celebrating death as an existential category: perverting a ~ Herbert Marcuse

I reject the concept that comic books in movies are a genre. I have been fighting that for many years, with the powers-that-be in Hollywood. ~ Michael Uslan

It's enshrined in our Constitution that an individual has a right to release information and disseminate information that makes the powers that be uncomfortable. ~ Moby

There are lots of women and lots of men in the business that the powers that be decide are the right people and they'll stand with them for quite a long time. ~ Rupert Everett

I squinted at the clock, sighing when I realized it was only 7 A.M. "Christ. Do you think the powers that be would mind if I asked them to make sure the next apocalypse takes place later in the day? Maybe around teatime?"
"Good luck with that. ~ Allison Pang

When I touched that boy, I felt something. Something awful. Something I can't describe."
"We all felt it," Nick said.
"You may have felt it, but I caused it." Then both his eyes seemed to go far away. "Something changed out there. I don't know what it was, but something in the world changed because that kid didn't deserve what I did to him - and the powers that be know that I did it." Nick watched as a tear fell from his Everlost eye and disappeared through the living world table.
"What if," said Nick, not even sure what he was going to say yet, "what if you were that kid and you were told you could change the world, but you would have to sacrifice yourself to do it?"
Clarence chuckled at the thought. "I believe that question was already asked a long time ago, and that creepy kid did not look anything like Jesus to me."
"But you do think that something changed. . . ."
"I don't know whether it's good or bad."
"What if it's neither?" suggested Nick. "What if we get to make it one or the other? ~ Neal Shusterman

Alas, I soon grew disillusioned, concluding that economics was largely a form of intellectual prostitution where you got rewarded for saying what the powers that be wanted to hear. Whatever ~ Max Tegmark

Therefore, I feel convinced that any political picture can be changed to suit the needs of the powers that be. ~ Thor Heyerdahl

Let the Christian remain in the world, not because of the good gifts of creation, nor because of his responsibility for the course of the world, but for the sake of the Church. Let him remain in the world to engage in frontal assault on it, and let him live the life of his secular calling in order to show himself as a stranger in the world all the more. But that is only possible if we are visible members of the Church. The antithesis between the world and the Church must be borne out in the world. That was the purpose of the incarnation. That is why Christ died among his enemies. That is the reason and the only reason why the slave must remain a slave and the Christian remain subject to the powers that be. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Once the government can demand of a publisher the names of the purchasers of his publications, the free press as we know it disappears. Then the spectre of a government agent will look over the shoulder of everyone who reads. The purchase of a book or pamphlet today may result in a subpoena tomorrow. Fear of criticism goes with every person into the bookstall. The subtle, imponderable pressures of the orthodox lay hold. Some will fear to read what is unpopular, what the powers-that-be dislike. When the light of publicity may reach any student, any teacher, inquiry will be discouraged. The books and pamphlets that are critical of the administration, that preach an unpopular policy in domestic or foreign affairs, that are in disrepute in the orthodox school of thought will be suspect and subject to investigation. The press and its readers will pay a heavy price in harassment. But that will be minor in comparison with the menace of the shadow which government will cast over literature that does not follow the dominant party line. If the lady from Toledo can be required to disclose what she read yesterday and what she will read tomorrow, fear will take the place of freedom in the libraries, book stores, and homes of the land. Through the harassment of hearings, investigations, reports, and subpoenas government will hold a club over speech and over the press."

[United States v. Rumely, 345 U.S. 41 (1953)] ~ William O. Douglas

The fall of the protecting class walls transformed the slumbering majorities behind all parties into one great unorganized, structureless mass of furious individuals who had nothing in common except their vague apprehension that the hopes of party members were doomed, that, consequently, the most respected, articulate and representative members of the community were fools and that all the powers that be were not so much evil as they were equally stupid and fraudulent. It was of no great consequence for the birth of this new terrifying negative solidarity that the unemployed worker hated the status quo and the powers that be in the form of the Social Democratic Party, the expropriated small property owner in the form of a centrist or rightist party, and the former members of the middle and upper classes in the form of the traditional extreme right. The number of this mass of generally dissatisfied and desperate men increased rapidly in Germany and Austria after the first World War, when inflation and unemployment added to the disrupting consequences of military defeat; they existed in great proportion in all the succession states, and they have supported the extreme movements in France and Italy since the second World War. ~ Hannah Arendt

Our freedom of speech is freedom or death,
We got to fight the powers that be! ~ Chuck D

Eating with the fullest pleasure - pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance - is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living in a mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend. ~ Wendell Berry

All that I can tell you is, that I used my humble powers to the uttermost, and raised my voice in behalf of Human Rights in general, and the elevation and Rights of Woman in particular, nearly all my life. ~ Ernestine Rose

I'm a firm believer that ultimately the truth cannot hurt you. It can bring you pain, heartache, and sadness but it cannot destroy the person you are. It can bring you understanding of whom and what you are. ~ Martha Powers

The web: yet another total disorientation that becomes status quo without anyone realizing it. ~ Richard Powers

Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC), whose Egyptian museum in San Jose took up an entire city block. It stressed the virtues of reason and science while also suggesting that ancient Egyptian wisdom would allow its followers to re-lease the hidden powers inherent in man. ~ George Pendle

There were no religious images in the churches or synagogues of our childhood that celebrated the birthing powers of women. According to religion's myths, the world was brought into being by a male God, and woman was created from man. This reversal of biological process went unchallenged. Most of us didn't even notice the absence of the mother. Although we may not have been consciously aware of her absence in bible stories and sermons, her absence was absorbed into our being. And its painful influence was intensified as we observed the design of our parents' relationship and the treatment of our mothers by our fathers and brothers. Our families mirrored the hierarchical reality of the heavens. In a society that worships a male God, the father's life is more valuable than the mother's. The activities of a man's life are more vital and necessary than the mother's intimate connections with the origins of life. The father is God. ~ Patricia Lynn Reilly

The thing about music was that you never knew the shape of anyone's desire. ~ Richard Powers

The assassination at Sarajevo was certainly the crucial precedent of the European war that its conspirators had sought, but was not the historical cause ... The assassination acted as a lever, prying the various powers into predictable paths. ~ J. Bowyer Bell

The real enemy is the totality of physical and mental constraints by which capital, or class society, or statism, or the society of the spectacle expropriates everyday life, the time of our lives. The real enemy is not an object apart from life. It is the organization of life by powers detached from it and turned against it. The apparatus, not its personnel, is the real enemy. But it is by and through the apparatchiks and everyone else participating in the system that domination and deception are made manifest. The totality is the organization of all against each and each against all. It includes all the policemen, all the social workers, all the office workers, all the nuns, all the op-ed columnists, all the drug kingpins from Medellin to Upjohn, all the syndicalists and all the situationists. ~ Bob Black

By their subjugation of the press, the political powers in America have conferred on themselves the greatest of political blessings
Gyges' ring of invisibility. And they have left the American people more deeply baffled by their own country's politics than any people on earth. Our public realm lies steeped in twilight, and we call that twilight news.' ~ Walter Karp

The most fascinating powers don't mean a thing if the guy's poorly motivated or dull, and the most generic powers won't hurt a well-motivated character. Personality and motivation are what make Magneto, Magneto and not Cosmic Boy. The powers work for him, but it's his motivation that makes him the character he is. ~ Kurt Busiek

is commonly felt that the ~ Melvin Powers

As we do at such times I turned on my automatic pilot and went through the motions of normalcy on the outside, so that I could concentrate all my powers on surviving the near-mortal wound inside. ~ Sonia Johnson

It is the nature of the noble and the good and the wise that they impart to us of their nobility and their goodness and their wisdom while they live, making it natural for us to breathe the air they breathe and giving us confidence in our own untested powers. And the same influence in more ethereal fashion they continue to exert after they are gone. ~ Felix Adler

I believe that at this point in history, the greatest danger to our freedom and way of life comes from the reasonable fear of omniscient State powers kept in check by nothing more than policy documents. ~ Edward Snowden

I think everybody is psychic. I think it's one of the things in our subconscious that, for some reason, we've convinced ourselves that it's not real or possible, and luckily, we're getting closer and closer, I think we're using technology to give us these psychic powers that we already had. It's sort of like the idea that you can't dream up something unless it already exists. ~ Larkin Grimm

Harry uttered an inarticulate yell of rage: In that instant, he cared not whether he lived or died. Pushing himself to his feet again, he staggered blindly toward Snape, the man he now hated as much as he hated Voldemort himself
"Sectum - !"
Snape flicked his wand and the curse was repelled yet again; but Harry was mere feet away now and he could see Snape's face clearly at last: He was no longer sneering or jeering; the blazing flames showed a face full of rage. Mustering all his powers of concentration, Harry thought, Levi
"No, Potter!" [ ... ] Snape's pale face, illuminated by the flaming cabin, was suffused with hatred just as it had been before he had cursed Dumbledore.
"You dare use my own spells against me, Potter? It was I who invented them - I, the Half-Blood Prince! And you'd turn my inventions on me, like your filthy father, would you? I don't think so ... no! ~ J.K. Rowling