A Quote by Frank Herbert
One uses power by grasping it lightly. To grasp too strongly is to be taken over by power, and thus to become its victim.
Related Quotes
A certain type of person strives to become a master over all, and to extend his force, his will to power, and to subdue all that resists it. But he encounters the power of others, and comes to an arrangement, a union, with those that are like him: thus they work together to serve the will to power. And the process goes on.
Power is very much like the wind. It comes and goes; no one really owns it. People are foolish enough to think they possess power. You don't possess power, power possesses you. Power uses you.
I was very, very concerned about President Obama and how much executive order and how much executive power he tried to exert. But I think I want to be, and I think congress will be, a check on any executive, Republican or Democrat, that tries to grasp too much power. And really, a lot of the fault is not only presidents trying to take too much power, it's Congress giving up too much power.
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.
The mistakes (of leaders) are amplified by the numbers who follow them without question. Charismatic leaders tend to build up followings, power structures and these power structures tend to be taken over by people who are corruptible. I don't think that the old saw about 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely' is accurate: I think power attracts the corruptible.
Although the president has the power to remove an FBI director, the decision should not be taken lightly.
Free people can treat each other justly, but they can't make life fair. To get rid of the unfairness among individuals, you have to exercise power over them. The more fairness you want, the more power you need. Thus, all dreams of fairness become dreams of tyranny in the end.
I believe strongly that when you have political capital, you should use it in a manner that helps improve the human condition. You shouldn't just compile power and hold onto power for power's sake.
And because it may be too great a temptation to human frailty, apt to grasp at power, for the same persons, who have the power of making laws, to have also in their hands the power to execute them, whereby they may exempt themselves from obedience to the laws they make, and suit the law, both in its making, and execution, to their own private advantage.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a canonizing institution. Jann Wenner has worked to make Rolling Stone the keeper of the canon since 1970. I don't like that, because he uses institutional power and he uses economic power to enforce those standards.
I strongly believe that the Founding Fathers of our country got it right: power corrupts, and any time you have too much power concentrated in one place, it tends to get abused, so checks and balances are always needed.
The abuse of power that seems to create the most unhappiness is when a person uses personal power to get ahead without regards to the welfare of others, or when power is used to go into the lower dimensional planes.
It looks simple to come up with a tablet that works, but it is not, ... In order to have the power and portability you need, you need power. The screen is the part of the device that uses the most power.
Power depends ultimately on physical force. By teaching people that violence is wrong (except, of course, when the system itself uses violence via the police or the military), the system maintains its monopoly on physical force and thus keeps all power in its own hands.
In the late '60s, people were saying we need power to, not power over. Power to do, accomplish, create, not power over other people.
True power is not in trying to gain power; true power is in becoming power. But how to become power? It requires an attempt to make a definite change in oneself, and that change is a kind of struggle with one's false self.
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