A Quote by Robert Caro

Robert Moses wasn't elected to anything. We're taught that in a democracy power comes from being elected. He had more power than anyone, and he held it for 48 years

Robert Caro

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Anyone Anything Being Democracy Elected Had Held More More Power Moses Power Robert Taught Than Years

Quote Author

Robert Caro
American - Writer
Born: October 30, 1935

Robert Moses wasn't elected to anything. We're taught that in a democracy power comes from being elected. He had more power than anyone, and he held it for 48 years.

Robert Caro

You know, we're taught that in a democracy power comes from being elected.

Robert Caro

All of Robert Caro's biographies are exceptional, in part because of Caro's fundamental ambivalence about power. He sees its necessity and use for getting things done, even as he is often repelled by watching power at close range. His masterpiece on Robert Moses, The Power Broker, describes the evolution of Moses from idealist to pragmatist as he became one of the most powerful figures in the 20th century.

Jeffrey Pfeffer

Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomen. To the same degree that I do not understand power, I do understand those who oppose power, who criticize power, who contest power, especially those who rebel against power imposed by brutality.

Oriana Fallaci

He possessed the power. He held it in his hand. A power stronger than the power of money or the power of terror or the power of death: the invincible power to command the love of mankind. There was only one thing that power could not do: it could not make him able to smell himself.

Patrick Süskind

But there are advantages to being elected President. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret.

Ronald Reagan

It is true that power corrupts. The hope at the polling stations and the actions of the elected representatives, unfortunately, often turn to be opposite. The power of ballot turns into the power of wallet. Some law-makers become law-breakers.

Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj

There is only one thing more harmful to society than an elected official forgetting the promises he made in order to get elected; that's when he doesn't forget them.

John McCarthy

The biggest accomplishment, in racial terms, for Barack Obama was being elected. He had to overcome his blackness to be elected. He climbed the Mt. Everest of American politics, becoming an historic first.

Randall Kennedy

Society must take every means at its disposal to defend itself against the emergence of a parallel power which defies the elected power.

Pierre Trudeau

All things being equal, if we could simulate the same scenario, he has a lot more difficult task. He's elected to swim six individual events, as opposed to what I elected to do, which was four.

Mark Spitz

I do not diminish the incredible symbolic importance of a black man getting elected president. But my euphoria was a smart guy getting elected president. Maybe for the first time in my lifetime we had elected one of the thousand smartest Americans president.

Aaron Sorkin

Anyone in England who puts himself forward to be elected to a position of political power is almost bound to be socially or emotionally insecure, or criminally motivated, or mad.

Auberon Waugh

Maybe some hidden, fragmented part of me had feared that if I admitted to Bones how much he truly meant to me, then I'd be acknowledging to myself that he had the power to destroy me more thoroughly than anyone, even Apollyon or the vampire council, could. All the rest of the world could only kill or devastate my mind and body. Bones alone held the power to demolish my soul.