A Quote by Margaret MacMillan

Exercising power can do strange things to people. You can become convinced that you're irreplaceable. You can become convinced that you're always right. And I think the danger is the longer you stay in power, the more likely that is to happen.

Margaret MacMillan

Quote Topics

Always Become Convinced Danger Exercising Happen Irreplaceable Likely Longer More People Power Right Stay Strange Strange Thing Strange Things Things Think

Quote Author

Margaret MacMillan
Canadian - Historian
Born: December 23, 1943

I really have become convinced that nuclear fusion is our energy future. It's so powerful. I mean, it is the power of the stars. If we could bring that down to the laboratory and to the power plant on Earth, that would be an incredible thing.

Taylor Wilson

That's what Judith Herman is saying, and she's absolutely right. Power then breeds an intensification of all because the power can never be absolute power - to some extent it's stymied - but the isolation while in power becomes even more dangerous. Think of it as a vicious circle. The power intensifies these tendencies and the tendencies become more dangerous because of the power.

Donald Trump

For anyone with the traits - of feeling himself victimized, of seeking to be the strongman who resolves everything, yet sees truth only through his own self and negates all other truth outside of it - is bound to become more malignant when he has power. Power then breeds an intensification of all this because the power can never be absolute power - to some extent it's stymied - but the isolation while in power becomes even more dangerous. Think of it as a vicious circle. The power intensifies these tendencies and the tendencies become more dangerous because of the power.

Robert Jay Lifton

The longer I live the more convinced I become that God governs in the affairs of men. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance.

Benjamin Franklin

The longer I work in nutrition, the more convinced I become that for the healthy person all foods should be delicious.

Adelle Davis

I think Sepp Blatter is in danger...or has reached a point now, where he is being mocked within the game. Whether he's getting too old, I don't know. But things can happen to people in power. Look at some of the despots in Africa... From a position of great power, he has uttered so many ridiculous statements that he is in danger of seriously damaging his credibility.

Alex Ferguson

Do your best and become as successful as you can because the more powerful you become, the smaller the other person gets, right? So it's like the bigger you are, the better you become, the less power other people have over you. The best thing to do is to always compete with yourself and not to compete with others.

Kelly Cutrone

The power of life that is buried deep inside you will never rise up until you have become convinced that you're walking the only path open for you.

Kosho Uchiyama

I think as more women are in positions of power, more people of color are in positions of power, the stories become more inclusive; the casts become more inclusive.

Kerry Washington

I am very Aristotelian in approach - not in detail - so I always find I'm saying things that get people frustrated like 'It's a matter of balance and judgement'. To a lot of philosophers these are terrible words because they're admitting of vagueness and uncertainty. The more I've done philosophy, the more I've become convinced that that is the way it is.

Julian Baggini

I'm fully and completely convinced that the 'Hour of Power' is a step in leading people to a fuller understanding of who Jesus is. I can't tell you how many people have watched the 'Hour of Power' and say, 'Now I feel confident to be able to go to a church'... That's what the 'Hour of Power' does.

Robert A. Schuller

I have become convinced that the more wealth a country accumulates, the more isolated and lonely its people become. The loneliest are usually the children and the elderly. Children learn what they live, and isolation in the ‘village’ is one of the most destructive messages we daily write on the tablets of their hearts.

Wess Stafford

I think the perception of wealth and power is that things just become easier and easier when in reality as you raise the stakes things become more stressful.

Sean Parker

The longer I live the more convinced I become that one of the greatest honors we can confer on other people is to see them as they are, to recognize not only that they exist, but that they exist in specific ways and have specific realities.

V. S. Naipaul

A government of our own is our natural right; and when a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance.