Great power

“ My spirit of prophecy reaches no farther than, New England GUESSES.
You ask, how it has happened that all Europe has acted on the principle, "that Power was Right." I know not what answer to give you, but this, that Power always sincerely, conscientiously, de tres bon foi, believes itself right. Power always thinks it has a great soul, and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak ”

“ It is, and it was, and it will be through all the ages the great power of the world, against which it is vain to rebel. And that government is really the best which unfetters its spiritual influence, and encourages it ”

“ Let us never forget that great material prosperity, the glory of conquest and all the bright and glittering panoply of national power, can not take the place of those higher essentials which sustain and develop individual and national character. ”

“ Our noble President has bowed to the will of the Supreme Power and by the guidance and sustaining spirit of that Power will, I trust, lead our country successfully through the great and fearful struggle and place it upon a firm and more enduring basis. ”

“ First, whatever we can do with the mind, namely calculate or anticipate; next, whatever we can effect with the body, for instance, marching, giving, taking and the like. Thirdly, whatever we can do by a multitude of soldiers or a plentiful supply of money; hence a king is said to have great power. ”

“ At the beginning of the next period another great man appeared, the waves of whose power were felt over the whole world, and who, by the grandeur of his conceptions, power and executive will, rose from obscurity to dictate to Europe, which was at that time the world. ”

“ We are all agents of the same supreme power, the people. ”

“ There are men, in all ages, who mean to exercise power usefully; but who mean to exercise it. They mean to govern well; but they mean to govern. They promise to be kind masters; but they mean to be masters. ”

“ And thus our State, which is also yours, will be a reality, and not a dream only, and will be administered in a spirit unlike that of other States, in which men fight with one another about shadows only and are distracted in the struggle for power, which in their eyes is a great good. ”

“ It is plainly said that the beast represents the great civil or governmental power in its final stage, the shape it will be in at the end when these events occur. [161] The chief dominating political power of the world will have passed through a succession of changes, seven kingdoms successively following each other. ”

“ Civil power, properly organized and exerted, is capable of diffusing its force to a very great extent; and can, in a manner, reproduce itself in every part of a great empire, by a judicious arrangement of subordinate institutions. ”

“ So it appeareth plainly, to my understanding, both from Reason, and Scripture, that the Soveraign Power, whether placed in One Man, as in Monarchy, or in one Assembly of men, as in Popular, and Aristocraticall Common-wealths, is as great, as possibly men can be imagined to make it. ”

“ When a Beast or Man is put for a kingdom, his parts and qualities are put for the analogous parts and qualities of the kingdom; as the head of a Beast, for the great men who precede and govern; the tail for the inferior people, who follow and are governed; the heads, if more than one, for the number of capital parts, or dynasties, or dominions in the kingdom, whether collateral or successive, with respect to the civil government; the horns on any head, for the number of kingdoms in that head, with respect to military power ”

“ Every movement in that direction renders it the more necessary to raise the intelligence of the great mass of the people to a level which may enable them to make a safe and salutary use of the power placed in their hands. ”

“ The Power of the Crown is always lodged in a single Person, either King or Minister; and as this Person may have either a greater or less Degree of Ambition, Capacity, Courage, Popularity or Fortune, the Power, which is too great in one Hand, may become too little in another. ”

“ However enlightened and however skilful a central power may be, it cannot of itself embrace all the details of the existence of a great nation. ”

“ President, the contest, for ages, has been to rescue Liberty from the grasp of executive power. ”

“ But one begins to be a power, an influence. People whisper in the Tube, 'Who's that?' 'That! Don't you know? Why Him—He! The man who is making the Government a laughing-stock. The man who holds the Empire in the palm of his hand. ”

“ From a boy you were taught to govern this great empire, but a better thing you learned, to be governed, submitting, yourself to the authority that is the best in the world and the most just, that is to say nature and law. ”

“ Wherefore I have decided to step in and become captain of this world-ship for a while. I have the intelligence and the wide vision of the skilled expert. Also, I have the power. I shall be obeyed. The men of all the world shall perform my bidding and make governments so that they shall become laughter-producers. These modelled governments I have in mind shall not make the people happy, wise, and noble by decree; but they shall give opportunity for the people to become happy, wise, and noble. ”

“ On a new path of power doth stand and wait.
Tho' heavy-burdened shall his heart rejoice,
Dowered with a nation's faith, an empire's choice.
Who hath no strength, but that the people give,
And in their wills, alone, his will doth live. ”

“ I have now only to add the hope that your deliberations may be characterized by that wisdom and harmony so essential to the attainment of those great ends for which you are here assembled; with my fervent desire that all your labors may, under the guidance of Heaven, give additional force and energy to all those principles of private and public virtue so indispensable to the stability, prosperity, and success of the Government and people of the Republic. ”

“ Crafty designing men, that they might keep the world in awe, have, in their several forms of government, placed a supreme power on earth, to keep humankind in fear of being hanged; and a Supreme Power in Heaven, for fear of being damned. ”

“ When the foundations of the Government were laid, and liberty proclaimed throughout the length and breadth of the land, it was anticipated that this nation would grow to a pitch of glory and attain to a greatness and power that no other nation on the face of the earth had ever attained. ”

“ Though the habit, general in past times, of regarding the powers of governments as inherent, has been, by the growth of popular institutions, a good deal qualified; yet, even now, there is no clear apprehension of the fact that governments are not themselves powerful, but are the instrumentalities of a power. ”

“ It is confessedly the dominant power of the nation. The whole power of the government, and the whole power of the wealth, and the whole power of the fashion, and the practical organic workings of the large bodies of the church, are all gone one way. ”

“ When we listen so frequently to such abstract terms as “the majesty of the people,” “the sovereignty of the people,” whence the inference that “all power is derived from the people,” we can form no definite notions: it is “a confusion of words,” contradicting all the political experience which our studies or our observations furnish; for sovereignty is established to rule, to conduct, and to settle the vacillations and quick passions of the multitude. ”

“ You can change the superficial conditions of the struggle for existence and for power, but the fundamental facts of it will remain. Monarchy, aristocracy, democracy,—it’s all the same. The most powerful will rule, whether by armies or by newspapers; it makes no difference if God is on the side of the biggest battalions, or the side of the biggest type. ”

“ Suppose, therefore, any four or five powers who, all together, shall be equal, or even a little superior, in riches and strength to that one power against which they are united; the advantage will still be greatly on the side of that single power, because it is but one. ”

“ The same principle shall be maintained mutually among the subjects of the three sovereigns, who will thus be taught to recognise that the only ruler is He to whom alone belongs power, and in whom are all the treasures of love and wisdom. ”

“ There was a relief from monarchical, aristocratic, and hierarchical burdens, a simplification of political machinery, and an experiment in the direction of popular self-government. There was a transference of power into the hands of the people more complete than ever before. ”

“ And so, I suppose, they are indeed, not only as individuals but as a nation—a huge, unshapely mass, with a glossy polish on the outer surface, but fierce forces within, kept in control by a tremendous pressure of power, or superstition, or stolid faith, but really untamed and full of savage vigor. ”

“ I cannot interpose the power with which I may be invested—a power conferred, not for my personal benefit, nor for my aggrandizement, but for my country’s good—to check her onward march to greatness and glory. I have not courage enough. ”

“ No monarchical throne presses these States together, no iron chain of military power encircles them; they live and stand under a government popular in its form, representative in its character, founded upon principles of equality, and so constructed, we hope, as to last for ever. ”

“ Of course, where unlimited power is possessed by the political head—where, as victorious invader, his subjects lie at his mercy, or where, as divinely descended, his will may not be questioned without impiety, or where he unites the characters of conqueror and god—he naturally absorbs every kind of authority ”

“ Many men who have been least scrupulous in the acquisition of power have been most beneficent in the use of it, whether the power they aimed at and won was that of wealth, political authority, or what not. ”

“ Thus the power is like the ball which is flung from hand to hand: it passes from kings to tyrants, from tyrants to the aristocracy, from them to democracy, and from these back again to tyrants and to factions ”

“ Any supporter of such an authority, resting purely on popularity, must therefore endeavor to improve and to safeguard this authority by creating power. In power, therefore, that means in force, we see the second foundation of all authority. ”

“ Is it not this same mighty, deep-seated power that somehow operates on the minds of men, exciting and stirring them up in every avenue of society,—in politics, in religion, in literature, in morals, in all the manifold relations of life? ”

“ Both wish for self-government; and, however grave the drawbacks under which in one or both it exists, the two have, among the great nations of the world, made the most effectual advances toward the true aim of rational politics. ”

“ Who can in reason then, or right, assume Monarchy over such as live by right His equals, if in power and splendour less, In freedom equal? ”

“ When it is said that the strongest power in society will make itself strongest in the government, what is meant by power? Not thews and sinews; otherwise pure democracy would be the only form of polity that could exist. To mere muscular strength, add two other elements, property and intelligence, and we are nearer the truth, but far from having yet reached it. ”

“ The first principles of power are in the people; and all the projects of men in power ought to refer to the people, to aim solely at their good, and end in it: And whoever will pretend to govern them without regarding them, will soon repent it. ”

“ Each individual, who, either by corporeal strength, advantageous position, wealth, or habit, could influence the minds of others, snatched at that portion of the divided empire which lay nearest to his means, and claimed that power as a gift which had only been intrusted as a loan. ”

“ All through history there had been men into whose hands supreme power had been committed, who had carried this authority with an astounding degree of wisdom and integrity. For every one who had comported himself with such wisdom in the presence of supreme authority, there were a score, or more likely a hundred, who had used this power stupidly, foolishly, inefficiently, brutally or viciously. ”

“ In such cases other nations simply deal with an actually existing condition of things, and recognize as one of the powers of the earth that body politic which, possessing the necessary elements, has in fact become a new power. ”