A Quote by Barbara Deming

To resort to power one need not be violent, and to speak to conscience one need not be meek. The most effective action both resorts to power and engages conscience. Nonviolent actions does not have to get others to be nice. It can in effect force them to consult their consciences. Nor does it have to petition those in power to do something about a situation. It can face the authorities with a new fact and say: Accept this new situation which we have created.
To resort to power one need not be violent, and to speak to conscience one need not be meek. The most effective action both resorts to power and engages conscience.
Nonviolent action does not have to get others to be nice. It can in effect force them to consult their consciences.
To resort to power one need not be violent, and to speak to conscience one need not be meek.
Love is power, the purest power and the greatest power: Love is God. Nothing can be higher than that. But this power is not a desire to enslave others, this power is not a destructive force. This power is the very source of creation. This power is creativity. And this power will transform you totally into a new being. It has no concern with anybody. Its whole concern is to bring your seeds to their ultimate flowering.
We are not to suppose, that there is any violent exertion of power, such as is required in order to produce a great event in little time; in nature, we find no deficiency in respect of time, nor any limitation with regard to power. But time is not made to flow in vain; nor does there ever appear the exertion of superfluous power, or the manifestation of design, not calculated in wisdom to effect some general end.
We should not be content to say that power has a need for such-and-such a discovery, such-and-such a form of knowledge, but we should add that the exercise of power itself creates and causes to emerge new objects of knowledge and accumulates new bodies of information. ... The exercise of power perpetually creates knowledge and, conversely, knowledge constantly induces effects of power. ... It is not possible for power to be exercised without knowledge, it is impossible for knowledge not to engender power.
The real power is love, that which empowers others, that which arouses action, that which no chain is able to hold back, for even on the Cross or on the death bed one is able to love. One does not need youthful beauty, nor recognition or approval, nor money or prestige. Let love simply bloom...and it is unstoppable.
If the large power voluntarily abstains from using its full power or feels the strategic situation to be such that it cannot do so, it in effect loses the advantage of being a big power.
They [women] can use their abilities to support each other, even as they develop more effective and appropriate ways of dealing with power.... Women do not need to diminish other women[they] need the power to advance their own development, but they do not "need" the power to limit the development of others.
Effective learning means arriving at new power, and the consciousness of new power is one of the most stimulating things in life.
To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.
Outstanding American men seem to see power as something you use in order to correct someone who's wrong, to change them, to show them you see more in this situation than the boss does. Outstanding American women, on the other hand, see power as a resource, something you can use to get people together, to gain commitment.
In our male-oriented God phase, it's always about conquering and control of life and death. This power leads to a kind of thinking that is no thinking; it is only sterile and what can overcome. To reach that depth in terms of female divinity is to accept nurture as godly. It's not just something that your mom does for you when something's broken and you need a bandage; it's about something deeper and it is in contradistinction from the endless displays of power.
Does not the possibility or the power to do something about the situation at hand confer on one the responsibility to do it?
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.
Those who have power a) understand that the world is not always a just and fair place and accept that fact, b) understand the bases and strategies for acquiring power, and c) take actions consistent with their knowledge in a skillful way. Skill at anything requires practice, and power skills are no different.
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