Samuel Johnson Quotes on Power (18 Quotes)

There must always be a struggle between a father and son, while one aims at power and the other at independence.

Power is always gradually stealing away from the many to the few, because the few are more vigilant and consistent.

There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex.

When once a man has made celebrity necessary to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his satisfaction, at least to withhold it. His enemies may indulge their pride by airy negligence and gratify their malice by quiet neutrality.

It is difficult to conjecture, from the conduct of him whom we see in a low condition, how he would act if wealth and power were put into his hands

He that has once concluded it lawful to resist power, when it wants merit, will soon find a want of merit, to justify his resistance to power

The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things - the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.

No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it. . . . There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that will keep us safe under every form of government.

Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.

Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings

To do nothing is in every man's power.

I cannot forbear to wish, that this commotion (in the colonies) may end without bloodshed, and that the rebels may be subdued by terror rather than by violence and, therefore, recommend such a force as may take away, not only the power, but the hope

Every other enjoyment malice may destroy every other panegyric envy may withhold but no human power can deprive the boaster of his own encomiums.

Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.

Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.

A thousand years may elapse before there shall appear another man with a power of versification equal to that of Pope.

To do nothing is in everyone's power.

Insanity is the power of fancy over reason.