Quote #361

Real power does not demonstrate itself in anything that can be purchased in mere money. Money only buys the illusion of power. Real power is in the force of will - will strong enough that others bend to it for it's own sake, and follow it willingly. Power that is won through deception will evaporate under the hot light of truth, as more closely you look at it, even when it resides only in a single person, without armies, without servants, without friends, but with indomitable will.

More from Orson Scott Card

  1. How do you know you're right and were wrong? I don't know
  2. If I wanted to doubt then I could doubt endlessly. But at some point a person has to stop questioning and act, and at that point you have t…
  3. Don't force the issue, don't force Nafai to humiliate you in front of the others. Instead work with him, and he will gladly let you take as…
  4. She never finished the sentence, because at that moment [he] began to learn how to kiss a woman, and she, though she had never kissed a man…
  5. I hate it when you back away from a quarrel like that. I don't like conflict. But you always back off at the exact moment when you're about…
  6. That was all she needed - was for him to tell her he didn't expect her to be the waterseer all the time, that he was marrying the fragile, …
  7. If there's one thing our group is too small to endure, it's sexual tension
  8. In all his life, [he] had never spoken with such brutal frankness about his own fear; he had never felt so exposed and vulnerable in front …

All Orson Scott Card quotes