Appetitive power

“ I am powerful, and I hug my power—it comforts me: without it, what should I be?—an abject, forsaken, miserable woman. No! that power I possess—to shake men's secret souls—even if it be a deceit—even if I should laugh at them, not pity—reconciles me to myself and to the past. ”

“ O God, I have in Thee in me all the energy and strength that I shall need this day. No temptation can come to me to-day that I have not got the power in Thee, that I never have used yet, to draw upon, that will enable me to meet and conquer. No work will come to me to-day that is too much for me, no matter how exacting or unprecedented in my experience. ”

“ Are you passionate, self-willed, ever seeking to gain your own ends, self-indulgent, and self-centered; or are you gentle, mild, unselfish, quit of every form of self-indulgence, and are ever ready to give up your own? If the former, self is your master; if the latter, Truth is the object of your affection. Do you strive for riches? Do you fight, with passion, for your party? Do you lust for power and leadership? Are you given to ostentation and self-praise? Or have you given up the love of riches? Have you relinquished all strife? ”

“ He stands anew in our midst to-day, and putting His pierced hand gently upon your arm, His low, loving, clear voice says quietly, but very distinctly, "You—you shall have power." For every subtle, strong temptation, for every cry of need, for every low moan of disappointment, for every locking of the jaws in the resolution of despair, for every disheartened look out into the morrow, for every yearningly ambitious heart there comes to-night that unmistakable ringing promise of His—ye shall have power. ”

“ There is but one power which, with strong hand, maintains the balance, teaches us to be sparing of joy, helps us endure pain, dams all the streams of desire and sends them back to toil and bear fruit within the soul: asceticism! It cuts with firm touch the luxuriant shoots from the tree of life, that its strength may concentrate within the marrow of the trunk and urge the growth upward. Asceticism! ”

“ You have gained an increase of power. The influence which is most truly valuable, is that of mind over mind. How entire and perfect is this dominion, over the unformed character of your infant. Write what you will, upon the printless tablet, with your wand of love. Hitherto, your influence over your dearest friend, your most submissive servant, has known bounds and obstructions. Now, you have over a new-born immortal, almost that degree of power which the mind exercises over the body, and which Aristotle compares to the "sway of a prince over a bond-man." ”

“ Festive mood.—Those very people who are most eager in the aspiration after power experience an indescribably pleasant sensation when feeling themselves overpowered. Sinking suddenly and deeply into a feeling as into a whirlpool! Suffering the reins to be snatched from our hands and watching a movement whose end is unknown. ”

“ Passion for power: which, however, mounts alluringly even to the pure and lonesome, and up to self-satisfied elevations, glowing like a love that paints purple felicities alluringly on earthly heavens. ”

“ The world is filled with men and women seeking pleasure, excitement, novelty; seeking ever to be moved to laughter or tears; not seeking strength, stability, and power; but courting weakness, and eagerly engaged in dispersing what power they have. ”

“ Passion is not power; it is the abuse of power, the dispersion of power. Passion is like a furious storm which beats fiercely and wildly upon the embattled rock whilst power is like the rock itself, which remains silent and unmoved through it all. ”

“ The world presents such a spectacle of evasion as it has never seen before. Never was there such a boiling over and waste of vital energy. The Sphinx of our opportunity calls for the uttermost powers of heart and brain to read its riddle—the new, astonishing riddle of excessive power. ”

“ He fasted all this time, as a physical preparation necessary to the attainment of the full powers of the soul. At the end of that time, conscious of the full possession of subjective power such as no man ever before attained, contemplating the career upon which he was about to enter, realizing all its possibilities for good and all its opportunities for the attainment of personal power and aggrandizement, the temptation came. ”

“ The madness which seizes those greedy of power is like the passion of the gamester, who is unable to limit his desire of gain. By this law of insatiable ambition Providence equalizes destinies, and power is prevented from being consolidated in a few hands. ”

“ Perhaps I have not the power or patience to shape a man's soul to a noble purpose or ambition. I want him strong and [72] earnest, full of energy and that high sense of duty to all around him, not satisfied to drift down the stream in frivolous content, but to make the way better for his having gone over it. ”

“ If it be asked, Why we do so, the best answer will be, Because we cannot help it. The sense of power is as strong a principle in the mind as the love of pleasure. Objects of terror and pity exercise the same despotic control over it as those of love or beauty. ”

“ But alas, nothing proves so conclusively the fallen nature of man as the general, common want of spiritual appetite! For money, for power, for pleasure, for rank, for honor, for distinction—for all these the vast majority are now intensely thirsting. ”

“ But it comes on me so strongly, now, that there are two: love, and power. And we've been trying to work ourselves, at least as individuals, from the love-urge exclusively, hating the power-urge, and repressing it. ”

“ He was naturally of a headstrong and violent temper, which might, perhaps, have been tamed down by adversity, but which only ran into wilder waste in the sunshine of prosperity. He was passionately fond of power, without the ability to make a proper use of it. ”

“ It is, in fact, the pleasure of exercising power. I do not mean arbitrary, personal authority, but the power to produce, by successful but quiet contrivance, extensive and happy results;—the pleasure of calmly considering every difficulty, and without irritation or anger, devising the proper moral means to remedy the moral evil: and then the interest and pleasure of witnessing its effects. ”

“ And Helvetius would fain show us that we strive after power in order to have those pleasures which are at the disposal of the mighty—that is to say, according to him, this striving after power is the will to pleasure—hedonism! ”

“ Our passions in general are to be traced more immediately to the active part of our nature, to the love of power, or to strength of will. Such are all those which arise out of the difficulty of accomplishment, which become more intense from the efforts made to attain the object, and which derive their strength from opposition. ”

“ That power of endurance, that quickness of apprehension, that calmness of judgment, which enable him to seize the opportunities that others lose, and persist in the lines of conduct in which others fail—are these not talents?—are they not, in the present state of the world, among the most distinguished and influential of mental gifts? ”

“ A thing compact of flesh and instincts was she, craving for power, a fierce ambition alone being able to keep her appetites in check, and preserving her up to the present chaste and inviolate, in spite of her nature's passionate warmth. ”

“ As you succeed in rendering yourself impervious to such mental dissipations you will begin to understand what true power is, and you will then commence to grapple with the more powerful desires and appetites which hold your soul in bondage, and bar the way to power, and your further progress will then be made clear. ”

“ It is notorious that a single successful effort of moral volition, such as saying 'no' to some habitual temptation, or performing some courageous act, will launch a man on a higher level of energy for days and weeks, will give him a new range of power. ”

“ Simply because the one is still in our power, and the other not—because the efforts of the will to bring any object to pass or to prevent it strengthen our attachment or aversion to that object—because the pains and attention bestowed upon anything add to our interest in it—and because the habitual and earnest pursuit of any end redoubles the ardour of our expectations, and converts the speculative and indolent satisfaction we might otherwise feel in it into real passion. ”

“ There are terrible temptations that it requires strength—strength and courage—to yield to. To stake all one's life on one throw—whether the stake be power or pleasure I care not—there is no weakness in that. There is a horrible, a terrible, courage. ”

“ It is not your strength and your natural power that subjects all these people to you. Do not pretend then to rule them by force or to treat them with harshness. Satisfy their reasonable desires; alleviate their necessities; let your pleasure consist in being beneficent; advance them as much as you can, and you will act like the true king of desire. ”

“ As to deciding what provokes pain and pleasure, that is a question which depends upon the degree of power: the same thing, when confronted with a small quantity of power, may seem a danger and may suggest the need of speedy defence, and when confronted with the consciousness of greater power, may be a voluptuous stimulus and may be followed by a feeling of pleasure. ”

“ Indeed, in many cases, the passion destined to be dominant has nearly reached the maturity of its power previously to any outward violation of the expedient or the right. Where the restraining [pg 108] influences of education and surroundings are strong, where important interests are at stake, or where conscience has not been habitually silenced or tampered with, the perilous appetite, desire, or affection broods long in the thought, and is so largely indulged in reverie and anticipation, that it becomes imperious and despotic before it assumes its wonted forms of outward manifestation. ”

“ Now, the problem of forging Passion into Power is that of changing any position of the stick which represents a condition of the consciousness that is not commonplace and that is undesirable, into some position which represents a desirable one. ”

“ But in all the wide world there was not a soul to hold out a hand to me, and I said bitterly, "There is no good in the world." In softer moods I said, "Ah, the tangle of it! Those who have the heart to help have not the power, and those who have the power have not the heart." ”

“ But as those who pursue pleasure are above all others impatient of interruption, so to such as interfered with thy main pursuit thou didst testify a deep, a lasting, and a revengeful anger. Yet let not such vices of temperament be too severely judged! For to thee were given man's two most persuasive tempters, physical and moral,—Health and Power! Thy talents, such as they were,—and they were the talents of a man of the world,—misled rather than guided thee, for they gave thy mind that demi-philosophy, that indifference to exalted motives, which is generally found in a clever rake. ”

“ The love of power, or the love of glory, when there is no opportunity of intellectual exertion, may, in the common acceptation of the word, be as passive as tranquillity itself. The passion is active only when, with intellectual action, it compares means with ends, and different means with each other, and deliberates, and resolves, and executes. ”

“ But it brings its own antidote; and here is my point, — that all kinds of power usually emerge at the same time; good energy, and bad; power of mind, with physical health; the ecstasies of devotion, with the exasperations of debauchery. ”

“ But the power to enjoy has grown in like degree, and both joy and pain are subordinated to the power to act. The human will, the power to do, is the real end of the stress and struggle of the ages. However limited its individual action, the will finds its place among the gigantic factors in the evolution of life. ”

“ You may be unconquerable, if you enter into no Combat, in which it is not in your own Power to conquer. When, therefore, you see any one eminent in Honours, or Power, or in high Esteem on any other Account, take heed not to be hurried away with the Appearance, and to pronounce him happy: for, if the Essence of Good consists in Things in our own Power, there will be no room for Envy, or Emulation. ”

“ We grant that rulers will take as much as they can of the objects of their desires; and that, when the agency of other men is necessary to that end, they will attempt by all means in their power to enforce the prompt obedience of such men. But what are the objects of human desire? Physical pleasure, no doubt, in part. But the mere appetites which we have in common with the animals would be gratified almost as cheaply and easily as those of the animals are gratified, if nothing were given to taste, to ostentation, or to the affections. ”

“ We feared pain much earlier than we apprehended guilt, and were delighted with the sensations of pleasure, before we had capacities to be charmed with the beauty of rectitude. To this power, thus early established, and incessantly increasing, it must be remembered that almost every man has, in some part of his life, added new strength by a voluntary or negligent subjection of himself; for who is there that has not instigated his [33] appetites by indulgence, or suffered them, by an unresisting neutrality, to enlarge their dominion, and multiply their demands? ”

“ I will worship toward Thy holy temple, in Thy fear: Lord, lead me in Thy righteousness.” [127] Appetite is then the movement of the mind to or from something. [128] Passion is an excessive appetite exceeding the measures of reason, or appetite unbridled and disobedient to the word. Passions, then, are a perturbation of the soul contrary to nature, in disobedience to reason. But revolt and distraction and disobedience are in our own power, as obedience is in our power. Wherefore voluntary actions are judged. But should one examine each one of the passions, he will find them irrational impulses. ”