Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from the sense of their inadequacy and impotence. They hate not wickedness but weakness. When it is in their power to do so, the weak destroy weakness wherever they see it.

I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Power gravitates to the man who knows how.

The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.

Power is the most persuasive rhetoric.

The world is ruled only by consideration of advantages.

We should keep silent about those in power; to speak well of them almost implies flattery; to speak ill of them while they are alive is dangerous, and when they are dead is cowardly.

A cock has great influence on his own dunghill.

Our duty is to be useful, not according to our desires, but according to our powers.