Desire For Power Quotes:

The love of power is the demon of mankind.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

source: Friedrich Nietzsche “Delphi Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Illustrated): Friedrich Nietzsche”, Delphi Classics

topic: Stupidity, Demon, Desire For Power

The desire for power feeds off itself, growing as it devours.

- Ursula K. Le Guin

source: Ursula K. Le Guin (2012). “Tales from Earthsea”, p.106, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

topic: Desire, Growing, Desire For Power

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

- Abraham Lincoln

topic: Inspirational, Leadership, Clever, Innovation And Leadership, Too Much Power

I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.

- Thomas Hobbes

source: Leviathan pt. 1, ch. 11 (1651)

topic: Authority And Power, Desire, Leviathan, Desire For Power, Inclination

Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.

- Napoleon Hill

topic: Inspirational, Dream, Encouragement, Transcending, Starting All Over

When you feel the desire for power, you should stay in solitude for some time

- Leo Tolstoy

topic: Inspirational, Solitude, Desire, Desire For Power

Not necessity, not desire - no, the love of power is the demon of men. Let them have everything - health, food, a place to live, entertainment - they are and remain unhappy and low-spirited: for the demon waits and waits and will be satisfied.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

topic: Food, Power, Men, Desire For Power

When your desires are strong enough you will appear to possess superhuman powers to achieve.

- Napoleon Hill

topic: Positive, Being Strong, Dream, Strong Desire, Superhuman Powers

Nowadays the world is becoming increasingly materialistic, and mankind is reaching toward the very zenith of external progress, driven by an insatiable desire for power and vast possessions. Yet by this vain striving for perfection in a world where everything is relative,they wander even further away from inward peace and happiness of the mind.

- Dalai Lama

topic: Peace, Perfection, Mind, Striving For Perfection, Zenith

Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement.

- W. Clement Stone

topic: Inspirational, Positive, Inspiring, Starting All Over, Starting All Over Again

Desire is the key to motivation, but it's determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal - a commitment to excellence - that will enable you to attain the success you seek.

- Mario Andretti

topic: Inspirational, Motivational, Success, Inspirational Commitment, Inspirational Determination

Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small amount of fire makes a small amount of heat. When your desires are strong enough you will appear to possess superhuman powers to achieve.

- Napoleon Hill

topic: Strong, Fire, Mind, Strong Desire, Superhuman Powers

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.

- George Bernard Shaw

topic: Motivational, Spiritual, Art, Creative People, Inspiration And Creativity

Ambition is the immoderate desire for honor.

- Baruch Spinoza

source: "The Essential Spinoza: Ethics and Related Writings".

topic: Philosophical, Ambition, Power, Desire For Power

Plant the seed of desire in your mind and it forms a nucleus with power to attract to itself everything needed for its fulfillment.

- Robert Collier

topic: Mind, Desire, Nucleus, Desire For Power, Power Of Visualization

It is, at the most basic level, a bundle of contradictions: a desire for power that strips you of all power. A gesture of strength that divests you of all strength.

- Marya Hornbacher

source: Marya Hornbacher (2009). “Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia”, p.9, Harper Collins

topic: Desire, Levels, Gestures, Desire For Power

What if God were not exactly truth, and if this could be proved? And if he were instead the vanity, the desire for power, the ambitions, the fear, and the enraptured and terrified folly of mankind?

- Friedrich Nietzsche

source: Friedrich Nietzsche (2016). “The Dawn of Day”, p.80, Friedrich Nietzsche

topic: Ambition, Vanity, Words Of Wisdom, Desire For Power

By 'nationalism' I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions and tens of millions of people can be confidently labeled 'good' or 'bad'...By 'patriotism' I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power.

- George Orwell

topic: Block, Believe, Mean, Desire For Power

People unfit for freedom - who cannot do much with it - are hungry for power. The desire for freedom is an attribute of a "have" type of self. It says: leave me alone and I shall grow, learn, and realize my capacities. The desire for power is basically an attribute of a "have not" type of self.

- Eric Hoffer

topic: Self, People, Leave Me Alone, Desire For Power

But the only measure that he knows is desire desire for power and so he judges all hearts. Into his heart the thought will not enter that any will refuse it that having the Ring we may seek to destroy it. If we seek this we shall put him out of reckoning.

- J. R. R. Tolkien

source: J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Lord of the Rings: One Volume”, p.194, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

topic: Heart, Judging, Desire, Desire For Power

Robert Kennedy was such an inspiring figure. His interest in politics seemed to come not from a desire for power, but from a need to help our society live up to its ideals.

- Elisabeth Shue

topic: Desire, Needs, Our Society, Interest In Politics, Desire For Power

Does political correctness have a good side? Yes, it does, for it makes us re-examine attitudes, and that is always useful. The trouble is that, with all popular movements, the lunatic fringe so quickly ceases to be a fringe; the tail begins to wag the dog. For every woman or man who is quietly and sensibly using the idea to examine our assumptions, there are twenty rabble-rousers whose real motive is desire for power over others. The fact that they see themselves as antiracists or feminists or whatever does not make them any less rabble-rousers.

- Doris Lessing

source: "Unexamined Mental Attitudes Left Behind By Communism" by Doris Lessing in "Our Country, Our Culture: The Politics of Political Correctness" edited by Edith Kurzweil and William Philips, 1994.

topic: Dog, Attitude, Real, Wag The Dog, Desire For Power

Men as well as women, must strive for a balance of experience. Masculinity, defined as requiring the ability to act physically or mentally but excluding anything too emotional or nurturing, currently denies men this balance. Their ability to care is seen as inappropriate for everyday use, and a lack of desire for power or promotion are seen as signs of inadequacy.

- Eva Cox

topic: Leadership, Men, Emotional, Desire For Power, Masculinity

Plunge into the world, and then, after a time, when you have suffered and enjoyed all that is in it, will renunciation come; then will calmness come. So fulfill your desire for power and everything else, and after you have fulfilled the desire, will come the time when you will know that they are all very little things; but until you have fulfilled this desire, until you have passed through that activity, it is impossible for you to come to the state of calmness, serenity, and self-surrender.

- Swami Vivekananda

source: Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.45, Manonmani Publishers

topic: Self, Serenity, Desire, Desire For Power