In former days, men sold themselves to the Devil to acquire magical powers. Nowadays they acquire those powers from science, and find themselves compelled to become devils. There is no hope for the world unless power can be tamed, and brought into the service, not of this or that group of fanatical tyrants, but of the whole human race, white and yellow and black, fascist and communist and democrat; for science has made it inevitable that all must live or all must die.

I greatly doubt whether the men who become pirate chiefs are those who are filled with retrospective terror of their fathers, or whether Napoleon, at Austerlit…

We thus have a kind of see-saw: first, pure persuasion leading to the conversion of a minority; then force exerted to secure that the rest of the community sha…

Most men do not feel in themselves the competence required for leading their group to victory, and therefore seek out a captain who appears to possess the cour…

...obsolete religious justification of violence which consisted in the recognition of the supernatural personality of the God-ordained ruler ('there is no powe…

[Alan Cranston] understood power not as a reflection of status but as a tool with a purpose.' - Sen. Joseph Biden December 31, 2000 on Meet the Press

The problem of power is how to achieve its responsible use rather than its irresponsible and indulgent use - of how to get men of power to live for the public …