6 John Steinbeck Quotes on Power

John Steinbeck quotes on power

11. If lowborn men could stand up to those born to rule, religion, government, the whole world would fall to pieces...[Merlin replies]...So it would; so it will...then the pieces will be put together again by such as destroyed it.

17. George:I never seen no piece of jail bait worse than her. You leave her be. Ch.2, p.33

22. Curleys wife:You watch your place, nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy, it ain't even funny. Ch.4, p.80

39. We have usurped many of the powers we once ascribed to God. Fearful and unprepared, we have assumed lordship over the life or death of the whole world - of all living things. The danger and the glory and the choice rest finally in man. The test of his perfectibility is at hand. Having taken Godlike power, we must seek in ourselves for the responsibility and the wisdom we once prayed some deity might have. Man himself has become our greatest hazard and our only hope. So that today, St. John the apostle may well be paraphrased: In the end is the Word, and the Word is Man - and the Word is with Men.

65. Give a critic an inch, he'll write a play.

73. Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.