A Quote by C. S. Lewis

What we call Man's power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.

C. S. Lewis

Quote Topics

Men Nature Power Call Instrument Man Other Out Over Some Some Men Turns

Quote Author

C. S. Lewis
British - Writer
November 29, 1898 - November 22, 1963

Man's conquest of Nature, if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men. There neither is nor can be any simple increase of power on Man's side. Each new power won by man is a power over man as well.

C. S. Lewis

What is really desired, under the name of riches, is essentially, power over men ... this power ... is in direct proportion to the poverty of the men over whom it is exercised, and in inverse proportion to the number of persons who are as rich as ourselves.

John Ruskin

A constitution is not the act of a government, but of a people constituting a government; and government without a constitution is power without a right. All power exercised over a nation, must have some beginning. It must be either delegated, or assumed. There are not other sources. All delegated power is trust, and all assumed power is usurpation. Time does not alter the nature and quality of either.

Thomas Paine

In the general course of human nature, A power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will.

Alexander Hamilton

Countless people have attempted to define the absolute power of the world of nature. Some praise it as god, some call it the Buddha, others call it truth. Still others convert nature into a philosophy by which they attempt to sound its deepest truth. Such attempts to define the power of nature are no more than striving to escape its effects.

Koichi Tohei

It seems to me that whereas power usually means power-over, the power of some person or group over some other person or group, it is possible to develop the conception of power-with, a jointly developed power, a co-active, not a coercive power.

Mary Parker Follett

The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men

George Orwell

It is the power of thought that gives man power over nature.

Hans Christian Andersen

In the beginning no power differential existed between male and female. God empowered both with full rights and responsibility to rule outward over all creation, not over each other. As we know all too well, the fall changed everything, precipitating male rule over women and also the rule of some men over other men, a.k.a., patriarchy. Within patriarchy, women no longer derive their value from their Creator, but from men - father, husband, and sons. Within patriarchy, a woman's value is gauged by counting her sons.

Carolyn Custis James

There are men who could neither be distressed nor won into a sacrifice of their duty; but this stern virtue is the growth of few soils: And in the main it will be found, that a power over a man's support is a power over his will.

Alexander Hamilton

The possession of power over others is inherently destructive both to the possessor of the power and to those over whom it is exercised.

George Davis Herron

For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means... the power of some men to make other men what THEY please.

C. S. Lewis

Nature is neutral. Man has wrested from nature the power to make the world a desert or make the deserts bloom. There is no evil in the atom; only in men's souls.

Adlai E. Stevenson

When we speak of power, we mean man's control over the minds and actions of other men. By political power we refer to the mutual relations of control among the holders of public authority and between the latter and the people at large.