Higher power

“ You will thus enable them to perceive the serious import of the responsibilities which, like a mantle of power, descends upon them, as the representative working units of this great republic. You can so inspire them that they will be eager and proud to take up with honor the burden of these responsibilities. You can so change and elevate the lives of these people and a multitude of others, that first they shall become masters of themselves; later, masters of the republic; through the controlling force, the imperial dominancy of scientifically developed, symmetrical minds ”

“ This is much; but it is yet more, when you have fully achieved the superiority which is due to you, and acquired the wealth which is the fitting reward of your sagacity, if you solemnly accept the responsibility of it, as it is the helm and guide of labor far and near. For you who have it in your hands, are in reality the pilots of the power and effort of the State. It is entrusted to you as an authority to be used for good or evil, just as completely as kingly authority was ever given to a prince, or military command to a captain. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At the same time it would be foolish to minimize the enormous and ever-increasing power it wields—a power that increases pari passu with the growing power of the masses and corresponding decrease in responsibility and intelligence of their chosen rulers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Let them be ever so modest and amenable to reason while there is a power over them stronger than they, we ought to expect a total change in this respect when they themselves become the strongest power. ”

“ The power, which is at once spring and regulator in all efforts of reform, is the conviction that there is an infinite worthiness in man which will appear at the call of worth, and that all particular reforms are the removing of some impediment. Is it not the highest duty that man should be honored in us? ”

“ In government, be yourself supreme, and let your supremacy be that of authority. But delegate power, as freely as possible, to those under your care. Show them that you are desirous of reposing trust in them, just so far as they show themselves capable of exercising it. ”

“ Is an act of its own will sufficient for it in order to employ to its own liking under all circumstances, as it shall understand them, the power that has been confided to it? Government must have been thus exercised in early society, and in the infancy of the art of governing. But the power, exercised by men, may go astray in different ways, either through weakness or through excess of force. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Relying, then, on the patronage of your good-will, I advance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become sensible how much better choice it is in your power to make. And may that Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe lead our councils to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your peace and prosperity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It amounts to asking whether a certain power is also a power over itself: or, more precisely, whether a man possessing a certain power—that which we call freedom—has also the same power over that power. ”

“ Let us unite every power within us to render ourselves worthy of such royal bounty, and multiply, all we can, the benefits which our gracious sovereign has intended we should reap from it, by the most diligent culture of every species of useful knowledge. ”

“ Authority. How does it act? We see in our Schools that it acts by power. We have power in the Schools over the children, power to order, power to reward them, power to punish and expel them, if they disobey. Authority everywhere rests on power, and works by power. The government has power at its command, soldiers, police, the action of the law: even in the home the father is the strongest: and can enforce, if need be, his will.
(2.) Knowledge. Knowledge, to put the thing simply, is that by which a man finds his way. ”

“ 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? ”

“ And if they shall be guided by the same principles, they will, like those of the present, not only retain, but also strengthen their power, and will for their advantage extract as much from their power as they can. ”

“ 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? ”

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

“ I need not urge this upon you, my people, who are, I believe, deeply conscious of the benefits which have come to us from a strong and unselfish Imperial government. It is our desire that this power should be strengthened rather than weakened, and set on a broader rather than a narrower basis. ”

“ They hold the supreme authority and power in heaven, and in the heaven of heavens, and throughout the wide expanse of universal nature. All principalities, powers, and kingdoms, whether in heaven or on earth, must yield to be instructed and controlled by the supreme power, or they cannot stand. ”

“ But here again we arrive at the same conclusion from the balance of power to which we were before driven by the combination of matter—regulated power proclaims a regulator, a governor. Power belongeth unto God. ”

“ That power which is its essential quality, authority owes simply to its own existence, not to reason; it is a result of the involuntary or voluntary subjection of men's minds to existing conditions. Authority had originally only two instruments at its disposal, compulsion and fear, instruments which it will always retain and use; but at an early age it began to call forth such feelings as reverence and gratitude. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I wrote, "to impute everything to, and demand everything from, power itself. I shall not say to it, as has often been said, 'Be just, wise, firm, and fear nothing;' power is not free to exercise this inherent and individual excellence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is solely owing to a principle which the policy of every successive dynasty has practically maintained, in a greater or less degree,—viz., that good government consists in the advancement of men of talent and merit only, to the rank and power conferred by official posts. ”

“ Now government is no other than the soul of a nation or city: wherefore that which was reason in the debate of a commonwealth being brought forth by the result, must be virtue; and forasmuch as the soul of a city or nation is the sovereign power, her virtue must be law. But the government whose law is virtue, and whose virtue is law, is the same whose empire is authority, and whose authority is empire. ”

“ The power of governing others, possessed by the Ruler,—of legislating for them, particularly of legislating for them through the agency of others, became an object of ambition, and in proportion as the capacities of those who were at first willing and obedient subjects were developed, they must have begun to regard with envious eyes the power of government exercised over them by other men. ”

“ If this Power is mis-used the results are terrible and disastrous. Therefore, use the Power only for the achievement of good and noble aims and in service which shall enrich the life of your fellows, adding to the common good. ”

“ If they are in power, and you not, why will not you speak [Pg 60] the truth to yourself, that you do nothing for the sake of power, but that they do every thing? No, but since I take care to have right principles, it is more reasonable that I should have power. ”

“ Power is the collective will of the people transferred, by expressed or tacit consent, to their chosen rulers. ”

“ The only government that I recognize—and it matters not how few are at the head of it, or how small its army—is that power that establishes justice in the land, never that which establishes injustice. ”

“ There are a large number of cases in which those things which it is most for the general interest that the rulers should do, are also those which they are prompted to do by their strongest personal interest, the consolidation of their power. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Their purpose, however, is equally answered, by pushing forward this unhappy figure, and forcing it to bear the odium of measures, which they in reality direct. Without immediately appearing to govern, they possess the power, and distribute the emoluments of government as they think proper. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The will to power is very old and very strong. Economic and social necessity on the one hand, and the driving pressure of human ambition and the love of domination on the other, have given it a front place in human affairs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The power is the government; the operatives its administrators; the various pieces and parts of the machinery are the people working in the several parts of the process; the cloth is the attained civilization, while the different degrees of fineness are its progressive steps.
Thus it should be with human government. It is the power resident in the central part which should control all the processes by which the people are guided to produce the ultimate result. ”