Power Quotes

"We learned in World War II that no single nation holds a monopoly on wisdom, morality or right to power, but that we must fight for the weak and promote democracy."

"It is astonishing what force, purity, and wisdom it requires for a human being to keep clear of falsehoods."

"It may almost be a question whether such wisdom as many of us have in our mature years has not come from the dying out of the power of temptation, rather than as the results of thought and resolution."

"You may invite the entire 35th Division to your wedding if you want to. I guess it's going to be yours as well as mine. We might as well have the church full while we are at it."

"Bush's war in Iraq has done untold damage to the United States. It has impaired our military power and undermined the morale of our armed forces. Our troops were trained to project overwhelming power. They were not trained for occupation duties."

"My grandfather was a general in the Nationalist Chinese Air Force during World War II, and I grew up hearing the pilot stories and seeing pictures of him in uniform."

"Until democracy in effective enthusiastic action fills the vacuum created by the power of modern inventions, we may expect the fascists to increase in power after the war both in the United States and in the world."

"We have no control over the outcome of anything. Like the planet and global warming, we don't control that. If politicians want a war we don't control that. Acts of terrorism, we can't control them."

"Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues."

"My songs are my kids. Some of them stay with me, some others I have to send out, out to the war. It might sound stupid and it might even sound naive, but that's just the way it is."

"Another term for preventive war is aggressive war - starting wars because someday somebody might do something to us. That is not part of the American tradition."

"Not that I regret saying what I believed to be the truth, but I regret anything that I might have written or spoken that could have been used in a way to help to foster that atmosphere out of which came the loss of life of Brother Malcolm."

"Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates. The truth is, nobody really possesses it."

"My disposition as a human being is kind of a go-along-to-get-along person. I tend to trust authority."

"The power to investigate is a great public trust."

"When I'm on stage, it's a little world I've created where I'm sort of the thing, so I have total control over everything that happens. When we're improvising, I'm with someone I totally trust. I know things are going to work out. I don't have those guarantees in life. There are no consequences on stage."

"It's just an unhealthy way to approach something, trying to outdo your last thing. You've gotta trust evolution, you've gotta trust that the bar is moving, that you don't need to force the bar. It'll just happen."

"Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you'll have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either of them might run out."

"I cannot trust a man to control others who cannot control himself."

"Trust is a great force multiplier."