Powers That Be Quotes

#1. Even when other powers have been lost and people may not even be able to understand language, they will nearly always recognize and respond to familiar tunes. And not only that. The tunes may carry them back and may give them memory of scenes and emotions otherwise unavailable for them.

Oliver Sacks

#2. It's enshrined in our Constitution that an individual has a right to release information and disseminate information that makes the powers that be uncomfortable.

Moby

#3. The past history of our globe must be explained by what can be seen to be happening now. No powers are to be employed that are not natural to the globe, no action to be admitted except those of which we know the principle.

James Hutton

#4. If someone wanted to have a grudge against me, or didn't agree with my lifestyle, the way I breathed, the space I took up on this planet, they had an open door to 'report' to the powers that be.

Mark Alders

#5. There will be something anguish or elation that is peculiar to this day alone. I rise from sleep and say: hail to the morning! come down to me, my beautiful unknown.

Jessica Powers

#6. When a law is in its nature a contract, when absolute rights have vested under that contract, a repeal of the law cannot divest those rights. The people can act only by their agents and, within the powers conferred upon them, their acts must be considered as the acts of the people.

John Marshall

#7. The logic of war seems to be if the belligerent can fight, he will fight. That leaders will not surrender until surrender is academic. How is a national leader to explain the sacrifice of so much for nothing?

Thomas Powers

#8. Powers that be, powers of three, let Caterina's destiny be all that I see.

Rachel Harris

#9. Twas a cold Yuletide evening, and I wandered the stacks, shelving multiple titles that the patrons brought back. We toiled overtime at our library here, 'cause the powers that be cut our staffing this year.

David Davis

#10. There are two types of visions. Those that will happen no matter what, and those that can be stopped. Now more than ever, I wish I could tell them apart.

Emlyn Chand

#11. I hadn't hold out much hope for myself; if my counterpart existed, he'd be amazingly talented to make up for my shortcoming, and that would condemn me to a life of living in his shadows; or he'd match my feeble powers and be so weak that we'd barely sense each other.

Joss Stirling

#12. The "Powers That Be" are not smart enough to engineer Armageddon, but they may yet be stupid enough. If governments are involved in covering up the knowledge of aliens, then they are doing a much better job of it than they seem to do at anything else.

Stephen Hawking

#13. I've always been a massive fan of Batman. He didn't have any powers, so it meant that anyone could be Batman.

Erin Richards

#14. People want everything to come out of a drive thru window. They want it instant and they want it fast. I succumb to that, we all succumb to that. We're in it. That's the culture. So the enemy, the powers that be, the manipulators behind the scenes play to our natural weaknesses.

Alex Jones

#15. It had to be U. U. was the only town I could still bear, the one spot in the atlas I'd already absorbed head-on. When you take too many of your critical hits in one place, that place can no longer hurt you.

Richard Powers

#16. It is right, or absolute right, that an individual should develop the powers that are in him. He may be said to have a "natural right" to become what he is capable of becoming. This is his only natural right.

William Ernest Hocking

#17. Secrets, like tyrants, have influence that extends far beyond their own thrones. To silence their oppressive powers, they must be uncrowned.

Ina Catrinescu

#18. You must avoid at all cost the idea that you can manage learning several skills at a time. You need to develop your powers of concentration, and understand that trying to multitask will be the death of the process.

Robert Greene

#19. You don't know what order with freedom means! You only know what revolt against oppression is! You don't know that the rod, discipline, violence, the state and government can only be sustained because of you and because of your lack of socially creative powers that develop order within liberty!

Gustav Landauer

#20. It seemed to me that half of life's problems would be solved if one of us had a vagina.

Richard Powers

#21. My personal opinion is that if someone writes honestly about war, it will inherently be anti-war.

Kevin Powers

#22. It is not sufficient for the young to devote their enthusiasm, their courage, their ambition, their self-sacrifice to the great ideas of the time; the young must not only preserve but increase their powers if they are to be really equal to their eternal task: that of drawing the age in advance.

Ellen Key

#23. You've gained some powers by your entrance into other dimensions and you use them to attack others or to make others miserable, then power reverses on you and it pulls you apart because it's not supposed to be used that way.

Frederick Lenz

#24. The freedom and human capacities of individuals must be developed to their maximum but individual powers must be linked to democracy in the sense that social betterment must be the necessary consequence of individual flourishing.

Henry Giroux

#25. What should be targeted is a concept of organic, and not just mechanic, democracy that preserves the rule of law, separation of powers, and that is participatory and pluralistic.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

#26. Most would think that I'm a god with every reason to be happy. But I'm a mistake God made. Too much power doesn't create happiness. It steals it. To have it all means there's no struggle and without having to pay a price, nothing has value. I wasn't gifted with powers. I was cursed with them.

Sarah Noffke

#27. I say, that Power must never be trusted without a check.

John Adams

#28. We set ourselves to achieve a society that would be maximally tolerant. But that resolve not only gives maximum scope to the activities of those who have set themselves to achieve the maximally intolerant society. It also ... paralyses our powers of resistance to them.

David Stove

#29. The first virtue of a young man today - that is, for the next fifty years perhaps, as long as we live in fear, and religion has regained its powers - is to be incapable of enthusiasm and not to have much in the way of brains.

Stendhal

#30. I understood that 'The Yellow Birds' would be a peculiar representation of the experience of being at war. I intended it to be so.

Kevin Powers

#31. Genius may anticipate the season of maturity; but in the education of a people, as in that of an individual, memory must be exercised, before the powers of reason and fancy can be expanded: nor may the artist hope to equal or surpass, till he has learned to imitate, the works of his predecessors.

Edward Gibbon

#32. The love of talk distracts all the powers of our soul from God, and fills them with earthly objects and impressions, like a vessel of water that cannot be settled while you are continualy stirring the earthly particles from the bottom.

Elizabeth Ann Seton

#33. But I figured every girl on the planet had found herself wishing she had a free pass inside a man's mind at one point or another. Maybe it was self-preservation that we didn't have such powers. It might be holy-crap creepy in there.

Erin McCarthy

#34. There are lots of women and lots of men in the business that the powers that be decide are the right people and they'll stand with them for quite a long time.

Rupert Everett

#35. European Christianity has allowed itself to be intimately united with the powers of this world. Now that these powers are falling, it is as if it were buried under their ruins.

Alexis De Tocqueville

#36. It may be that for a long time some nations will continue to fight each other, but the example of those nations who prefer arbitration to war, law courts to the battlefield, must sooner or later influence the belligerent powers and make war as unpopular as pugilism is now.

Randal Cremer

#37. The powers know that the people at large are like children whose despair, sorrow, and tears can be turned into joy with a little toy ... An army and navy represents the people's toys.

Emma Goldman

#38. By Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough: Powers that Be Power Lines Power Play

Anonymous

#39. If a robot can be manipulated into doing harm to a man, it means only that we must extend the powers of the positronic brain. One might say we ought to make the human better. That is impossible, so we will make the robot more foolproof.

Isaac Asimov

#40. I have been ranting and raving about this ever since the idea of the Cloud Ark was announced. So far all I get in return, from the powers that be, are vague answers and hand-wavy happy talk.

Neal Stephenson

#41. On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow. -

Friedrich Nietzsche

#42. NEVER FORGET THAT YOU ARE A WOMAN, AND THE GREATEST POWERS YOU CAN EMPLOY AS A WITCH ARE TOTALLY DEPENDENT UPON YOUR OWN SELF-REALIZATION THAT IN BEING A WOMAN YOU ARE DIFFERENT FROM A MAN AND THAT VERY DIFFERENCE MUST BE EXPLOITED!

Anton Szandor LaVey

#43. We have to ask ourselves why younger women don't feel the need to be right up front with their politics. Is that going to set us back or is that itself a sign of progress? I don't know the answer.

Ann Powers

#44. Dogmatism is thus the dogmatic procedure of pure reason without previous criticism of its own powers, and in opposing this procedure, we must not be supposed to lend any countenance to that loquacious shallowness which arrogates to itself the name of popularity, nor

Immanuel Kant

#45. There is nothing so enervating and exhausting as this hopeless waiting. I dare say this is only a transition period. I will and shall have a victory some day. If the powers that be have shown me so little favor as to place me in this world and make me what I am, the result must be accordingly.

Henrik Ibsen

#46. In the theory of evolution there is no talk of God and no Bibles are used. They're not looking for higher powers, extraterrestrials, or anything else that could be found in the science fiction section, because they are not dealing with fiction.

Henry Rollins

#47. Having a body that is like a musical instrument, open enough to be able to resonate, literally resonate with what is coming both from the inside and from the outside, so that one is able to surrender to powers greater than oneself.

Marion Woodman

#48. The great aim of your life should be to keep your powers up to the highest possible standard, to so conserve your energies, guard your health, that you can make every occasion a great occasion.

Orison Swett Marden

#49. The overarching issue, as I see it, is the elitism of America's political system; the fact that regular, ordinary Americans aren't considered in policy debates or legislation, and regularly get shafted by the powers-that-be in Washington.

Jerry Springer

#50. Take a stand that reflects the widest horizons of your soul if you don't want to be a slave to external powers.

Janvier Chouteu-Chando

#51. 'Faces' became more than a film. It became a way of life, a film against the authorities and the powers that prevent people from expressing themselves the way they want to, something that can't be done in America, that can't be done without money.

John Cassavetes

#52. was still afraid - not of the dark-lipped girl who seemed to be waiting for his kiss, not even of the twentieth-century sorceress she pretended to be, but rather of that vague and strangely terrifying feeling she aroused, of awakening senses and powers and old half memories in himself.

Jack Williamson

#53. If the powers that be really knew how much time I spent thinking about and researching celebrities, they probably wouldn't let me anywhere near the red carpet. But, please promise not to tell them. I'm harmless, I swear.

Ross Mathews

#54. Whatever evil voices may rage, Science, secure among the powers that are eternal, will do her work and be blessed.

Thomas Huxley

#55. The construction applied ... to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate Congress a power ... ought not to be construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument.

Thomas Jefferson

#56. If we can only live once, then let it be a daring adventure that draws on all our powers Let our grandchildren delight to find the start of our stories in their ears but the endings all around in their wandering eyes.

Julian Assange

#57. David Cameron has already said, and I have said, that a Conservative government would be giving the security agencies and law enforcement agencies the powers that they need to ensure that they are keeping up to date as people communicate with data.

Theresa May

#58. He who is going to be a magician will recognize that life is dependent on the work of the elements in the various planes and spheres. It is to be seen in great and in small things, in the microcosm as well as in the macrocosm, temporarily and eternally, everywhere there are powers in action.

Franz Bardon

#59. Don't Go With The Flow. The Powers That Be Turn The Taps

Dean Cavanagh

#60. These recent weeks have taught me that I am not in control of my own destiny, and that powers much larger than I are at war in this world. I can only be faithful to the tasks set before me. The rest is out of my hands.

L.B. Graham

#61. The powers that be understand that sexual freedom or liberation with any kind of joy means they are losing control.

Betty Dodson

#62. The powers-that-be understand that to create the appropriate atmosphere for war, it's necessary to create within the general populace a hatred, fear or mistrust of others regardless of whether those others belong to a certain group of people or to a religion or a nation.

James Morcan

#63. It is all the more clear what we have to accomplish at present: I am referring to ruthless criticism of all that exists, ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be.

Karl Marx

#64. Souls are like athletes, that need opponents worthy of them, if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers, and rewarded according to their capacity.

Thomas Merton

#65. I was cut out of The Doors. I was Okie Girl, a groupie. The powers that be thought that my character made Jim Morrison look too sleazy, if you can imagine. I saw the movie-it was so loud I had a headache for three days.

Jennifer Tilly

#66. We know that's the bottom line: if money is made, the powers that be pay attention.

Regina King

#67. Abandonment of slavery is also the banishment of the chimera of security. The world will not change overnight, and liberation will not happen unless individual women agree to be outcasts, eccentrics, perverts, and whatever the powers-that-be choose to call them.

Germaine Greer

#68. Therefore, I feel convinced that any political picture can be changed to suit the needs of the powers that be.

Thor Heyerdahl

#69. Vibrancy is so universally desirable, so totemic in its powers, that even though we aren't sure what the word means, we know the quality it designates must be cultivated. The vibrant, we believe, is what makes certain cities flourish.

Thomas Frank

#70. Grace does not contest the powers-that-be through an effective show of verifiable strength but through a persistent and subversive recoding of how one defines what strength and weakness are.

Adam Miller

#71. It may be affirmed, without extravagance, that the free institutions we enjoy, have developed the powers, and improved the condition, of our whole people, beyond any example in the world.

Abraham Lincoln

#72. All the world, as a matter of fact, is a mosaic of little places invisible to the powers that be. And in the eyes of the powers that be all these invisible places do not add up to a visible place. They add up to words and numbers.

Wendell Berry

#73. Try to reject war and give peace a chance. Question the powers that be and find out why they make the dubious decisions they do that send young people to war.

Helen Thomas

#74. Let us do whatever is required to qualify for the Holy Ghost as our companion and then let us go forward fearlessly so that we will be given the powers to do whatever the Lord calls us to do.

Henry B. Eyring

#75. If the end be clearly comprehended within any of the specified powers, and if the measure have an obvious relation to that end, and is not forbidden by any particular provision of the Constitution, it may safely be deemed to come within the compass of the national authority.

Alexander Hamilton

#76. I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant.

Edward Snowden

#77. Let every soul be in subjection to the higher powers: for there is no power but of God; and the powers that be are ordained of God. Therefore he that resisteth the power, withstandeth the ordinance of God: and they that withstand shall receive to themselves judgment.

Watchman Nee

#78. In fact I think now we've reached a point now, where the powers that be really have sort of vested interest in all of us being stoned out as much as possible all the time so we don't know what's going on, and we don't care.

Lester Bangs

#79. If you don't choose heroes, heroes will be chosen for you, and they will not represent values that empower you, they will represent powers that will enslave you

Russell Brand

#80. The powers that be have a way of outlawing many beautiful things made by ordinary people. I don't know why that should be, I only know it is.

Stephen King

#81. Even a man persuaded that the great powers of the heavens loved him above all else could starve. However powerful a story might be, it had its limits, and the brute material world didn't listen or care what priests and bankers told it.

Daniel Abraham

#82. It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who have expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed something, by developing before us the powers of thought.

Aristotle.

#83. All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.

Noam Chomsky

#84. Our reason has this peculiar fate that, with reference to one class of its knowledge, it is always troubled with questions which cannot be ignored, because they spring from the very nature of reason, and which cannot be answered, because they transcend the powers of human reason.

Immanuel Kant

#85. For I am convinced that neither death nor life neither angels nor demons neither the present nor the future nor any powers neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38

Anonymous

#86. I definitely want to continue working in independent films - and big budget stuff as well - but there's a freedom you have when you're not getting paid. It's easier to say no and there's no pressure to please the powers that be. Also I don't have to hear 'flirt and smile more.'

Trieste Kelly Dunn

#87. If you are going to set out to develop mystical powers to impress your friends and do other things to your enemies, the difficulty with it is that you will not be moving towards enlightenment.

Frederick Lenz

#88. I had learned and written too much history not to know that the great masses always and at once respond to the force of gravity in the direction of the powers that be. I knew that the same voices which yelled "Heil Schuschnigg" today would thunder "Heil Hitler" tomorrow.

Stefan Zweig

#89. If there are similarities, it's simply because the same thoughts that occurred to other people also occurred to me. I'd be astonished if anyone could come up with any truly original powers that were at all interesting any more.

Brad Bird

#90. Science has produced such powerful weapons that in a war between great powers there would be neither victor nor vanquished. Both would be overwhelmed in destruction.

John Boyd Orr

#91. I can't compete and when I do, the rules of engagement change in the middle of the game. I'll let the powers that be vanquish themselves and return in three to five years to sift through the remains.

Ayn Rand

#92. They both seemed to understand that describing it was beyond their powers, the gratitude that spreads through your body when a burden gets lifted, and the sense of homecoming that follows, when you suddenly remember what it feels like to be yourself.

Tom Perrotta

#93. There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so.

James D. Watson

#94. I bear you my witness that the Savior is closer to us than you have any idea. He will be close to you and the powers divine will be at your side when you have nowhere else to turn.

Harold B. Lee

#95. As peacemakers, we must resist all the powers of war and destruction and proclaim that peace is the divine gift offered to all who affirm life. Resistance means saying 'No' to all the forces of death, wherever they may be.

Henri Nouwen

#96. An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged; no harm can be done.

Jane Austen

#97. The Christian will desire to see the beauty of God in his house, that his soul might be ravished in the excellency of the object, and that the highest powers of his soul, his understanding, will, and affections might be fully satisfied, that he might have full contentment.

Richard Sibbes

#98. Among living artists, George Condo may be the most embraced by the powers that be.

Jerry Saltz

#99. We didn't invent music, so it's been here for a reason, and it has powers for a reason. So we should pay attention to it, because we might not know the clear answers but we should at least acknowledge that it is something there. To not be playin around with it.

Chuck D

#100. The margins don't get erased by simply insisting that the powers-that-be erase them.

Greg Boyle