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If there is a misuse of power, it is on her part. My crime is that I have never labored to make myself popular — I admit that much — and I have paid too little attention to fools who are old enough to be senile but young enough to have power.

— Isaac Asimov The Foundation series (1951)

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Power

More quotes by Isaac Asimov

A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

The Three Laws of Robotics (1942)

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988)

There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.

The Stars in Their Courses (1974)

A robot may not injure humanity, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

The Three Laws of Robotics (1942)

Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.

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The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.

John Adams A Defence of the Constitutions of Government (1787)

There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped.

Robert Anton Wilson

When we see a great man desiring power instead of his real goal we soon recognize that he is sick, or more precisely that his attitude to his work is sick.

Martin Buber What is Man? (1938)

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis God in the Dock (1970)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Isaac Asimov (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.