Power is an integral part of our lives, influencing our decisions, shaping our societies, and driving our ambitions. Whether it's through leadership, influence, or inner strength, power comes in many forms and can lead to both magnificent achievements and profound reflections. This collection of quotes about power aims to inspire, provoke thought, and provide wisdom on how to wield power responsibly and effectively.
Inspiration through Power Quotes
"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." - Alice Walker
"You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength." - Marcus Aurelius
"The measure of a man is what he does with power." - Plato
"Power isn't control at all—power is strength, and giving that strength to others. A leader isn't someone who forces others to make him stronger; a leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own." - Beth Revis
"With great power comes great responsibility." - Voltaire (possibly apocryphal, popularized by Spider-Man)
"Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power." - Seneca
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." - Abraham Lincoln
"Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society." - Michel Foucault
"The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace." - Mahatma Gandhi
"Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true." - Honoré de Balzac
"The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse." - Edmund Burke
"Knowledge is power." - Sir Francis Bacon
Leadership and Power Quotes
"A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way." - John C. Maxwell
"To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart." - Eleanor Roosevelt
"Leadership is not about being in charge. It is about taking care of those in your charge." - Simon Sinek
"The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers." - Ralph Nader
"The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and the self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it." - Theodore Roosevelt
"Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality." - Warren Bennis
"A great leader's courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position." - John C. Maxwell
"The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes." - Tony Blair
"Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another." - John C. Maxwell
"A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be." - Rosalynn Carter
"True leadership lies in guiding others to success. In ensuring that everyone is performing at their best, doing the work they are pledged to do and doing it well." - Bill Owens
"The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things." - Ronald Reagan
Inner Strength and Power Quotes
"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will." - Mahatma Gandhi
"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.'" - Eleanor Roosevelt
"Where there is no struggle, there is no strength." - Oprah Winfrey
"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places." - Ernest Hemingway
"You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice." - Bob Marley
"The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship." - William Blake
"The merit of all things lies in their difficulty." - Alexander the Great
"Tough times never last, but tough people do." - Robert H. Schuller
"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen." - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
"We acquire the strength we have overcome." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The human capacity for burden is like bamboo—far more flexible than you'd ever believe at first glance." - Jodi Picoult
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Power and Responsibility Quotes
"The price of greatness is responsibility." - Winston Churchill
"The responsibility of leadership is not to come up with all the ideas but to create an environment in which great ideas can thrive." - Simon Sinek
"If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money." - Abigail Van Buren
"To whom much is given, much will always be required. We have been given much, and we must require more of ourselves." - Jackie Kennedy
"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today." - Abraham Lincoln
"The power to question is the basis of all human progress." - Indira Gandhi
"You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist." - Indira Gandhi
"The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant." - Max DePree
"The most important thing in life is to stop saying 'I wish' and start saying 'I will.' Consider nothing impossible, then treat possibilities as probabilities." - Charles Dickens
"With power comes the absolute need for integrity." - Ruth Benedict
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." - Martin Luther King Jr.
"Responsibility is the price of freedom." - Elbert Hubbard
Quotes about Power and Politics
"In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way." - Franklin D. Roosevelt
"The ballot is stronger than the bullet." - Abraham Lincoln
"Those who seek power by riding the back of the tiger end up inside." - John F. Kennedy
"All political power comes from the barrel of a gun." - Mao Zedong
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies." - Groucho Marx
"He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still." - Lao Tzu
"In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve." - Alexis de Tocqueville
"Politics: the art of using euphemisms, lies, emotionalism, and fearmongering to dupe average people into accepting—or even demanding—their own enslavement." - Larken Rose
"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." - Winston Churchill
"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." - Mao Zedong
"History is a set of lies agreed upon." - Napoleon Bonaparte
"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." - Sun Tzu
Quotes on the Abuse of Power
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." - Lord Acton
"The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse." - Edmund Burke
"Nothing discloses real character like the use of power." - Robert Ingersoll
"If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals." - J.K. Rowling
"The most improper job of any man, even saints, is bossing other men." - J.R.R. Tolkien
"It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end." - Leonardo da Vinci
"He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command." - Niccolo Machiavelli
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." - Frederick Douglass
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Edmund Burke
"To rule is easy, to govern difficult." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"A throne is only a bench covered with velvet." - Napoleon Bonaparte
"The more laws, the less justice." - Marcus Tullius Cicero
Famous Historical Quotes about Power
"It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both." - Niccolo Machiavelli
"I am not interested in power for power’s sake, but I’m interested in power that is moral, that is right, and that is good." - Martin Luther King Jr.
"Power is not a means, it is an end." - George Orwell
"The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant." - Maximilien Robespierre
"The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty." - James Madison
"The object of power is power." - George Orwell
"The sovereignty of oneself over oneself is called Liberty." - Albert Pike
"Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions." - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"Knowledge will give you power, but character respect." - Bruce Lee
"He who has great power should use it lightly." - Seneca
"Liberty consists in the power of doing that which is permitted by law." - Cicero
"Power is so characteristically calm, that calmness in itself has the aspect of power." - Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
Quotes on Power and Influence
"Influence is the ability to move a person to a desired action." - Bob Burg
"The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority." - Ken Blanchard
"The most influential people in my life are probably not even aware of the things they've taught me." - Scott Adams
"The best thing you can do for someone else is to ask them for help. The more you ask, the more you silence their fears." - Navid Moazzez
"The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision." - Theodore Hesburgh
"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader." - John Quincy Adams
"Power is the ability to do good things for others." - Brooke Astor
"You can't have an influence over others if you don't know what moves you inward." - John C. Maxwell
"The greatest ability in business is to get along with others and to influence their actions." - John Hancock
"The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality." - John Quincy Adams
"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." - Henry Adams
"One life influencing another is the power that endures beyond the grave." - Unknown
Power and Success Quotes
"Success is not measured by what you accomplish, but by the opposition you have encountered, and the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds." - Orison Swett Marden
"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out." - Robert Collier
"The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way." - Dale Carnegie
"The difference between successful people and others is how long they spend time feeling sorry for themselves." - Barbara Corcoran
"The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary." - Vidal Sassoon
"Don't watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going." - Sam Levenson
"The secret of success is to do the common thing uncommonly well." - John D. Rockefeller Jr.
"Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill
"Action is the foundational key to all success." - Pablo Picasso
"Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit." - Conrad Hilton
"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it." - Henry David Thoreau
"Opportunities don't happen. You create them." - Chris Grosser
Quotes about the Power of Words
"Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind." - Rudyard Kipling
"Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality." - Edgar Allan Poe
"Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless." - Mother Teresa
"The tongue has no bones, but is strong enough to break a heart. So be careful with your words." - Unknown
"One kind word can change someone's entire day." - Unknown
"Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs." - Pearl Strachan Hurd
"Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively with words of despair." - Yehuda Berg
"Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder." - Rumi
"Words may show a man's wit, but actions his meaning." - Benjamin Franklin
"A broken bone can heal, but the wound a word opens can fester forever." - Jessamyn West
"The pen is mightier than the sword." - Edward Bulwer-Lytton
"Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace." - Buddha
Final words
In the realm of human dynamics, power stands as a potent force that shapes our interactions, decisions, and paths. The multitude of facets it encompasses—from leadership and responsibility to influence and success—reiterates its central role in our lives. By understanding and reflecting on the many dimensions of power, we can learn to wield it with wisdom and integrity. The quotes shared here offer timeless insights that can guide us in navigating the complex nature of power, whether it is external authority or inner strength.
Discover over 100 inspiring quotes about power, designed to motivate and empower you. Perfect for personal growth, motivation, and understanding the dynamics of power.
