Hard Power Quotes & Sayings

Everyone tells you to write what you know. It's the tried-and-true advice every writer hears at some point in her career. But to take my writing to a deeper level, I've found that a better practice is to simply write what frightens you, haunts you, even. I now keep a sign on the bulletin board in my office that reads: 'Write What Scares You.' I've learned that tapping into the hard stuff - whether it's the fear of loss or a boogeyman lurking in childhood memories - is what ultimately gives a story the power to leap off the page and grab you by the collar. — Sarah Jio

He dusted off the shoulder tab and stared at it, so light in his hand, so inconsequential. It was hard to believe that a shred of cloth could have so much destructive power locked away in it. — Mark Mills

Last month we had to sit through a presentation on eliminating redundancy, and it was a bunch of Power Point slides, plus a guy reading out what was on the slides, and then he gave us all hard copies. I don't understand these things. — Max Barry

Horses are consistent and logical. The horse will do what is easiest for him. If you make it easy for him to buck you off, kick you, and run away, that's just what he's going to do. And more power to him. But if you make it easy for the horse to be relaxed and calm and accurate - and also have it be a beautiful dance between you and the horse - it won't be too long before he'll be hunting for that just as hard as you are. Whatever you make easy for the horse, that's what he's going to get good at. — Buck Brannaman

He grabbed something off the floor and held it in front of his hips as he stood up. She drank in the sight of him: The tattooed slave bands around his wrists and neck, the plug in his left earlobe, his black eyes, his skull-trimmed hair. His body was as starkly lean as she remembered, all striated muscles and hard cut veins. And he threw off raw power like a scent. — J.R. Ward

Silas knew words could have power behind them. Usually it was just a sort of bad luck. He also knew, very early on, that you could never tell when that bad luck would jump up to claim its due, so it was best to be careful. Quiet was safer. He wished his parents had been quieter when they were together. Who knew what might happen when you said something awful to someone else? It was hard to take some words back. Some words stuck and you couldn't shake them off. Silence was better than those kinds of words. Silas had learned that lesson the hard way. — Ari Berk

At the core of love is validation. It is what gives love power.
For when love is given away, validation seeps in and expands in the heart of the recipient, filling up every empty, dark corner. It is a wonderful, light, consuming feeling we long for, and once found, we hope - even expect - it will forever remain. But there are times when that most precious love is revoked, and a hard scab forms over the empty hole. Though this scab is both healing and protective, it is the reason why validation from future love may not seep in so easily, no matter how wanting the heart. — Richelle E. Goodrich

When women are in positions of power it's a hard place to be, especially when that position involves bossing men around. — Alison Pill

Your past experiences are past indeed; those strains and emotions of sensuous life are gone and what has remained is the temple of your own building, that edifice not built by hands. The reality of you is in the invisible, the intangible. In retrospect your spiritual milestones stand stronger to you in their fixed position than any outward experience. Having arrived at this understanding try now, quietly, gently, without too much effort of self-discipline, to keep to the invisible, train yourself to keep immaterial. Watching and praying are essential. When hard pressed by old habits and you are under the heavy blanketings of times and events, you, as it were, disappear. This is the moment to step back into the invisible, for then the invisible will enfold you and give you great power in the visible world. — Mary Strong

As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect from the faith of Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers. The alternative, one so transparent that it should need no urging, is to abandon the principle of automatic respect for religious faith. This is one reason why I do everything in my power to warn people against faith itself, not just against so-called 'extremist' faith. The teachings of 'moderate' religion, though not extremist in themselves, are an open invitation to extremism. — Richard Dawkins

Hard work will never kill you; it's only going to make you gain more muscles to gather your bumper harvests! Do it and do it hard! — Israelmore Ayivor

Grief is a hone to a hard mind. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Maybe knowledge is power, but it's damned hard to think a burglar to death. — Lois Greiman

Don't be afraid of who you are. You cannot hope to control your power if you do not understand it and who you are. You must protect yourself at all costs even against those you ... love.' He hesitated lost for a moment and Victoria felt his thoughts flicker briefly into a strange nothingness before moving back to the consciousness she recognized. His words were hard. 'Love is a breeding ground for betrayal. Guard against it. — Amalie Howard

When you live in the United States, with the roar of the free market, the roar of this huge military power, the roar of being at the heart of empire, it's hard to hear the whispering of the rest of the world. And I think many US citizens want to. I don't think that all of them necessarily are co-conspirators in this concept of empire. And those who are not, need to listen to other stories in the world - other voices, other people. — Arundhati Roy

Human communication and literature are all made of words; thus, it's hard to overestimate their unbelievable power. — Sahara Sanders

As the Laurel-wreathed boxes come down to Gamma, I think about how clever it really is. They won't let us win the Laurel. They don't care that the math doesn't work. They don't care that the young scream in protest and the old moan their same tired wisdoms. This is just a demonstration of their power. It is their power. They decide the winner. A game of merit won by birth. It keeps the hierarchy in place. It keeps us striving, but never conspiring.

Yet despite the disappointment, some part of us doesn't blame the Society. We blame Gamma, who receives the gifts. A man's only got so much hate, I suppose. And when he sees his children's ribs through their shirts while his neighbors line their bellies with meat stews and sugared tarts, it's hard for him to hate anyone but them. You think they'd share. They don't. — Pierce Brown

Where is she? Living or dead, where is she? If, as he folds the handkerchief and carefully puts it up, it were able with an enchanted power to bring before him the place where she found it and the night-landscape near the cottage where it covered the little child, would he descry her there? On the waste where the brick-kilns are burning with a pale blue flare, where the straw-roofs of the wretched huts in which the bricks are made are being scattered by the wind, where the clay and water are hard frozen and the mill in which the gaunt blind horse goes round all day looks like an instrument of human torture - traversing this deserted, blighted spot there is a lonely figure with the sad world to itself, pelted by the snow and driven by the wind, and cast out, it would seem, from all companionship. It is the figure of a woman, too; but it is miserably dressed, and no such clothes ever came through the hall and out at the great door of the Dedlock mansion. — Charles Dickens

The first aim of a good college is not to teach books, but the meaning and purpose of life. Hard study and the learning of books are only a means to this end. We develop power and courage and determination and we go out to achieve Truth, Wisdom and Justice. If we do not come to this, the cost of schooling is wasted. — John B. Watson

It took several years of trial and error, soul-searching and hard work to shape the ROI program into the ROI Community. In the first few years, we got to see the power of these gatherings and the resulting connections that spanned the globe. It inspired us to think about how we could transform an annual gathering into a year-round community. — Lynn Schusterman

Don't always wish it is easier to be done; wish you have enough power to make it happen. No matter how difficult it is, you can do it when the solution is in your palms! — Israelmore Ayivor

When all our needs are met and all is well in our lives, we tend to take credit for what we have, to feel that we carry our own loads. We work hard to earn the money we need to buy food and clothes, pay our rent or mortgage. But even the hardest-working individual owes all he earns to God's provision. Moses reminded Israel that God "is giving you power to make wealth" (Deut. 8:18). — John F. MacArthur Jr.

Why do the X-Men need another girl telepath?" she asked. "This one has purple hair." "It's all so sexist." Park's eyes got wide. Well, sort of wide. Sometimes she wondered if the shape of his eyes affected how he saw things. That was probably the most racist question of all time. "The X-Men aren't sexist," he said, shaking his head. "They're a metaphor for acceptance; they've sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them." "Yeah," she said, "but - " "There's no but," he said, laughing. "But," Eleanor insisted, "the girls are all so stereotypically girly and passive. Half of them just think really hard. Like that's their superpower, thinking. And Shadowcat's power is even worse - she disappears. — Rainbow Rowell

That dead feeling hits hard and permeates the first year. It comes back to test you often in the following years, but if you get through the first year, then you know about it. It will never have the power to defeat you again. — Natalie Goldberg

One way or another, we spend our whole lives being conditioned into accepting some line or order, some position of domination or subjection. It's hard to unlearn such hierarchy, to undo such control. It's implicit. — Cliff James

You know when it comes to who should govern themselves, we have old people talking around tables," Jimmi says. "When you throw religion into the mix, you have a whole new set of problems. You can't say one has nothing to do with the other because that is simply not true. You have to change the government before we set religious freedoms. People like Firo and Clavis, they just don't want to suppress people. They want wealth and power. It's hard to find those who don't. — Celia Mcmahon

You are where your energy is and you get something from where your energy goes! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Who hears the wishes and goodbyes? The speaker does ... And you hope that what you say from the heart has power. Power to protect, power to reach the ears of the dead. A spoken thing or a whished-hard thing takes a shape within the heart, man. Takes shape. Becomes real. — Adrian Phoenix

Life is a hard fight, a struggle, a wrestling with the principle of evil, hand to hand, foot to foot. Every inch of the way is disputed. The night is given us to take breath, to pray, to drink deep at the fountain of power. The day, to use the strength which has been given us, to go forth to work with it till the evening. — Florence Nightingale

We endure hard times by the power of God. — Lailah Gifty Akita

All our lives, we're told work hard, strive for more, do all you can to live that life less ordinary. Money, power, fame, everyone wants it. But you get there and suddenly you're supposed to be ashamed, be humble?" He shakes his head. "Fuck that noise. I say live your life on your terms. If someone judges you about material things, that's their problem. — Kristen Callihan

Real confidence has no bluster or bombast. It's not rooted in a desire to seem better than everyone else and it's not driven by a fear of appearing weak. Real confidence settles in when you have a clear vision of exactly what you need to do. Real confidence blooms as you wield the skills and power you have built through your hard work and discipline. — Rob Brezsny

Heat energy of uniform temperature [is] the ultimate fate of all energy. The power of sunlight and coal, electric power, water power, winds and tides do the work of the world, and in the end all unite to hasten the merry molecular dance. — Frederick Soddy

Her magic sent him sprawling, and it then hurled into Rhysand again - so hard that his head cracked against the stones and the knife dropped from his splayed fingers. No one made a move to help him, and she struck him once more with her power. The red marble splintered where he hit it, spiderwebbing toward me. With wave after wave she hit him. Rhys groaned.
"Stop," I breathed, blood filling my mouth as I strained a hand to reach her feet. "Please."
Rhys's arms buckled as he fought to rise, and blood dripped from his nose, splattering on the marble. His eyes met mine.
The bond between us went taut. I flashed between my body and his, seeing myself through his eyes, bleeding and broken and sobbing.
I snapped back into my own mind as Amarantha turned to me again. "Stop? Stop? Don't pretend you care, human," she crooned, and curled her finger. I arched my back, my spine straining to the point of cracking, and Rhysand bellowed my name as I lost my grip on the room. — Sarah J. Maas

My grief was a heavy, despairing sadness caused by parting from a companion of many years but, more important, it was a despair rooted in the fear that love did not exist, could not be found. And even if it were lurking somewhere, I might never know it in my lifetime. It had become hard for me to continue to believe in love's promise when everywhere I turned the enchantment of power of the terror of fear overshadowed the will to love. — Bell Hooks

So who gave him his name?" I asked.
"Kerrick," Belen answered.
Not who I'd expect. "Why 'Flea'?"
A full-out grin spread across Flea's face. "Cause I'm fast and hard to catch."
"Because he's a pest and hard to squash," Belen said.
"Because he jumps about three feet in the air when you scare him," Loren added.
"Because he's annoying and makes us itch with impatience," Quain said.
"Thanks, guys. I love you too." Flea made exaggerated kissing noises and patted his ass. — Maria V. Snyder

Faith stands or falls on the truth that the future with God is more satisfying than the one promised by sin. Where this truth is embraced and God is cherished above all, the power of sin is broken. The power of sin is the power of deceit. Sin has power through promising a false future. In temptation sin comes to us and says: "The future with God on his narrow way is hard and unhappy, but the way I promise is pleasant and satisfying." The power of sin is in the power of this lie. — John Piper

It seems probable to me that God, in the beginning, formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, moveable particles, of such sizes and figures, and with such other properties, and in such proportions to space, as most conduced to the end for which He formed them; and that these primitive particles, being solids, are incomparably harder than any porous bodies compounded of them, even so very hard as never to wear or break in pieces; no ordinary power being able to divide what God had made one in the first creation. — Isaac Newton

He accepted the deformity which had made life so hard for him; he knew that it had warped his character, but no he saw also that by reason of it he had acquired that power of introspection which had given him so much delight. Without it he would never have had his keen appreciation of beauty, his passion for art and literature, and his interest in the varied spectacle of life. [ ... ] Then he saw that normal was the rarest thing in the world. Everyone had some defect of body or of mind [ ... ] The only reasonable thing was to accept the good of men and be patient with their faults. — W. Somerset Maugham

You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;
But yet you draw not iron, for my heart
Is true as steel: leave you your power to draw,
And I shall have no power to follow you. — William Shakespeare

It is a very hard thing to understand, but you will come to learn in time that nothing in the universe has power over you until you allow it to exercise such a power. — Swami Vivekananda

Needless to say, that meant that the Braekbills student body was quite the psychological menagerie. Carrying that much onboard cognitive processing power had a way of distorting your personality. And to actually want to work that hard, you had to be at least a little bit screwed up. — Lev Grossman

Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost ...
You, the people have the power - the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. — Charlie Chaplin

Genius, without work, is certainly a dumb oracle, and it is unquestionably true that the men of the highest genius have invariably been found to be amongst the most plodding, hard-working, and intent men
their chief characteristic apparently consisting simply in their power of laboring more intensely and effectively than others. — Samuel Smiles

With the power of one's will we stop thought and move into alternate forms of perception. We gain that power through practicing very, very, very hard each day when we meditate to stop our thoughts. — Frederick Lenz

As a woman who has some sort of power, you have to have a man that can take that. It's hard to find those men. — Jessica Simpson

I think we're making progress. We understand where the power of this country lay. It lies in the hearts and souls of Americans. It must lay in our pocketbooks. It lies in the willingness for people to work hard. — George W. Bush

I am inspired by the women I meet everywhere I go. They have to work so hard just to make sure their families survive, but somehow they stay optimistic and do everything in their power to make the future better than the past. — Melinda Gates

It may be hard to hear, but victim thinking is actually self-centered. If you're stuck in a victim mindset, you feel one down, helpless, and at the mercy of others. From this place you perceive yourself as the target of unfortunate events and other people. You may interpret random events as being about your exceptionally bad luck or as a sign that other people are out to get you. You become "terminally unique" in your outlook and you may even become paranoid. When you take on the role of victim as an identity or a badge of honor, you are actively participating in your victimization and disowning your authentic personal power. "You are only a victim for a nanosecond." - Pia Mellody — Vicki Tidwell Palmer

No matter how hard a struggle he had lived through in the past, he had never reached the ultimate ugliness of abandoning the will to act. In moments of suffering, he had never let pain win its one permanent victory: he had never allowed it to make him lose the desire for joy. He had never doubted the nature of the world or man's greatness as its motive power and its core. — Ayn Rand

Empower yourself and discover what you can do with your life through hard work, concentration and research — Sunday Adelaja

If a person believes in the power of sickness more than the power of God, it will be hard for him to receive God's healing. — Paul Silway

Power has always corrupted, my dear. Even the promise of power. It is a hard thing to look at through the fence for hundreds of years without wondering what it would be like on the other side. — Ally Carter

Some coaches are on power trips. I've never needed somebody to tell me I'm not working hard enough. — Mark Warkentin

It's very hard to operate on a general philosophy of power. They say that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, but I don't agree with that. I think you have to be corrupted to be corrupted by power. — Mark Pellegrino

Good preachers work hard with the text. They want to make the sermon as accurate as possible. They also want to make it as interesting as possible. They want to persuade, admonish, and exhort, yet nothing happens as a result of their skill. Nothing can happen - at least, nothing good. The Holy Spirit, who attends the preached Word, is the only one who moves people to changed lives and growth. The Word is where the power is. It is not in programs or human skills. We can preach this Word till we are blue in the face, but if the Holy Spirit does not work through the Word preached, noth-ing happens. — R.C. Sproul

I don't try to hit the ball 500 feet. It looks good when you hit it 500 feet, but as long as it goes over the fence, it's a home run. When you swing hard, it takes a little bit of recognition away from you. The power you're trying to increase - you're not all the way through it with your vision. — David Ortiz

Anyone who knew Violet well could tell she was thinking hard, because her long hair was tied up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes. Violet had a real knack for inventing and building strange devices, so her brain was often filled with images of pulleys, levers, and gears, and she never wanted to be distracted by something as trivial as her hair. — Lemony Snicket

If the power to do hard work is not a skill, it's the best possible substitute for it. — James A. Garfield

I loved him, more than anything else in the world and that when he was away it was hard to breath and that I couldn't go through a single second without thinking about him. — Heather James

There is a strength, a power even, in understanding brokenness, because embracing our brokenness creates a need and desire for mercy, and perhaps a corresponding need to show mercy. When you experience mercy, you learn things that are hard to learn otherwise. You see things you can't otherwise see; you hear things you can't otherwise hear. You begin to recognize the humanity that resides in each of us. — Bryan Stevenson

Our minds become slaves to those we see as having total power to control us and to cause pain to us. We are quick to give up control of ourselves to those who have the power to rule us as long as they also have the power to feed us. This is the fundamental construct of a feudal society. — Majid Kazmi

We work hard on the show. We really believe in the show. It's an enormous privilege to work on a show that has the power to touch people's lives in such a positive way. The fan mail and the e-mail certainly reflect that. — Roma Downey

There are good checklists and bad, Boorman explained. Bad checklists are vague and imprecise. They are too long; they are hard to use; they are impractical. They are made by desk jockeys with no awareness of the situations in which they are to be deployed. They treat the people using the tools as dumb and try to spell out every single step. They turn people's brains off rather than turn them on. Good checklists, on the other hand, are precise. They are efficient, to the point, and easy to use even in the most difficult situations. They do not try to spell out everything - a checklist cannot fly a plane. Instead, they provide reminders of only the most critical and important steps - the ones that even the highly skilled professionals using them could miss. Good checklists are, above all, practical. The power of — Atul Gawande

This FEMINIST Goes Hard. — Stephanie Lahart

Generally speaking, punishment makes men hard and cold; it concentrates; it sharpens the feeling of alienation; it strengthens the power of resistance — Friedrich Nietzsche

In order to escape a road of solitude, one has to work hard, and forge a new path with their own power! — Masashi Kishimoto

I've been doing Pilates since 1974, I lift weights, I power walk every day and I run backwards. That's sometimes a little hard when you're not on your home turf, because you've got to find a place where there are no bumps in the way - or people. — Britt Ekland

While we use American power to fight hard for democracy against extremism on both left and right, our critics seem suspicious of any assertion of United States power or influence against any government or group that claims to be on the left. — Elliott Abrams

The life-giving preacher is a man of God, whose heart is ever athirst for God, whose soul is ever following hard after God, whose eye is single to God, and in whom by the power of God's Spirit the flesh and the world have been crucified, and his ministry is like the generous flood of a life-giving river. — Edward McKendree Bounds

The idea of self-emancipation through knowledge, which was the basic idea of the Enlightenment, is in itself a powerful enemy of fanaticism; for it makes us try hard to detach ourselves or even to dissociate ourselves from our own ideas (in order to look at them critically) instead of identifying ourselves with them. And the recognition of the sometimes overwhelming historical power of ideas should teach us how important it is to free ourselves from the overpowering influence of false or wrong ideas. In the interests of the quest for truth and of our liberation from errors we have to train ourselves to view our own favourite ideas just as critically as those we oppose. — Karl Popper

Prayer for the Day Higher Power, show me how to live a simple life. I don't have to do everything the hard way if I listen better to You. — Anonymous

Aryans?" I asked, thinking I must have heard the word incorrectly.
Christian and Allie nodded.
"Aryans as in white supremacist, those sorts of Aryans?"
"Yes," Christian said.
"Neo-Nazis?" My mind was having a hard time grasping the idea of a power-hungry vampire leading an army of Hitler's Youth. "Skinheads and their ilk?"
"Hasi, what is it you find so unbelievable?" Adrian asked, a smile in his voice.
"Oh, I don't know. I guess I just expected that any army Saer raised would be ... you know ... the evil undead." Everyone just looked at me. "Oh, yeah, I guess you're right. Neo-Nazis are more or less the evil undead. Right. So we have Saer about to attack at any moment with a bunch of goose-stepping Nazis. Great. Anyone here do a really good Winston Churchill impression? — Katie MacAlister

Why is it so hard to be human being? I wonder. Why do we have to surrender? And to what? What if you refused to believe in a higher power? What if you thought you were the only trustworthy higher power? I have done that all my life and I know it doesn't work. You are not enough. Your will is not enough. But God? God is a pagan dream, conjured out of neediness. — Erica Jong

It is hard to believe, but the phrase 'workshop of the world' was originally coined for Britain, which today, according to Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, has 'no industry'. Having successfully launched the Industrial Revolution before other countries, Britain became such a dominant industrial power by the mid nineteenth century that it felt confident enough to completely liberalize its trade (see Thing 7). In 1860, it produced 20 per cent of world manufacturing output. In 1870, it accounted for 46 per cent of world trade in manufactured goods. The current Chinese share in world exports is only around 17 per cent (as of 2007), even though 'everything' seems to be made in China, so you can imagine the extent of British dominance then. — Ha-Joon Chang

God's will for your life is not very complicated. Obviously, living a Christlike life is hard work, and what following Jesus entails is not clear in every situation. But as an overarching principle, the will of God for your life is pretty straightforward: Be holy like Jesus, by the power of the Spirit, for the glory of God. — Kevin DeYoung

In their quest for power and self-importance, to compensate for whatever feelings of social inadequacy or sexual insecurity, they (Politicians)are prepared to perpetrate something which is hard to distinguish from mass murder if they think they can get away with it ... — Auberon Waugh

If I could give one message to the bullied, it would be this: You are not alone. You are strong. You have a voice. You are beautiful. You are intelligent. There are many kids who want to speak up for you, but they don't because they are afraid of becoming bullied themselves. There are many of us in the world who love you. I love you. You have the power to end this now. That power is in your voice. Find it. Once you use your voice, bullies want no part of you. If you feel that you lack the courage, fake it until you do. Finally, I know it's hard to see a life that exists beyond high school. It is there, and it is beautiful. — Dan Pearce

Neither fate, nor history, nor the anger of the State, nor the glory or infamy of battle has any power to affect those who call themselves human beings. No, whatever life holds in store
hard-won glory, poverty and despair, or death in a labor camp
they will live as human beings and die as human beings, the same as those who have already perished; and in this alone lies man's eternal and bitter victory over all the grandiose and inhuman forces that ever have been or will be ... — Vasily Grossman

It's all in your headJ you have the power to make things seem hard or easy or even amusing. The choice is yours. — Seneca The Younger

And this system sorted out the Chechen war in just 20 days. This way, I used the President's power, he didn't use me. It wasn't hard for me to leave - it isn't my scene. I have nothing to do there. — Aleksandr Lebed

The power of kings is transitory, like everything else. Royal glory is difficult to climb, like a bamboo; it is hard to hold, being fidgety like a monkey on a treetop; it is balanced precariously, like drops of water on a lotus-leaf; it is changeable, like the path of the wind; it is undependable, like the friendship of a dishonest man; it is difficult to tame, like a serpent; it glistens only for a moment, like a cloud at sunset; it is fragile, like bubbles on the surface of a river; it is elusive, like the treasure attained in a dream. Remember all this, and enjoy your kingdom modestly. — V.S. Narvane

Every account of a higher power that I've seen described, of all religions that I've seen, include many statements with regard to the benevolence of that power. When I look at the universe and all the ways the universe wants to kill us, I find it hard to reconcile that with statements of beneficence. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

I was the illegitimate child of the legitimate theater. I had no training. I came from downtown rock and roll, and when I came in and auditioned for the Broadway revival of 'Hair,' I had no eyebrows - kind of a Bowie-esque glimmer kid. And it was hard representing the flower power era when we were stone cold punks. — Annie Golden

Profitability, growth, and safeguards against existential risks are crucial to strengthening a company's long-term prospects. But if these three factors constitute a company's 'hard power,' firms also need 'soft power': public trust and acceptance, won by fulfilling a company's social responsibility. — Klaus Schwab

They lack suggestive power. And when a book lacks suggestive power, however hard it hits the surface of the mind it cannot penetrate within. — Virginia Woolf

The powerful have a hard time seeing their own power and its effects. We do not see when our exercise of power is cutting off life and possibility for others; we do not see the ways others are resisting or undermining our own power. — Andy Crouch

The rims of his eyelids were burning. A blow received straightens a man up and makes the body move forward, to return that blow, or a punch-to jump, to get a hard-on, to dance: to be alive. But a blow received may also cause you to bend over, to shake, to fall down, to die. When we see life, we call it beautiful. When we see death, we call it ugly. But it is more beautiful still to see oneself living at great speed, right up to the moment of death. Detectives, poets, domestic servants and priests rely on abjection. From it, they draw their power. It circulates in their veins. It nourishes them. — Jean Genet

I love Ruth Brown, not just her singing, but Ruth Brown has more girl power than anyone, because she fought hard against people who ripped her off and then helped other artists through the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. — Ronnie Spector

Power corrupts. Knowledge is power. Study hard. Be evil. — Eleanor Roosevelt

Sam had a DVD in his hand. He said, "Yesterday I sent Edilio to the power plant to get two things. First, a cache of automatic weapons from the guardhouse.
"Machine guns?"
"Yeah. Not just for us to have, but to make sure the other side doesn't get them."
"Now we have an arms race," Astrid said.
Her tone seemed to irritate Sam. "You want me to leave them for Caine?"
"I wasn't criticizing, just ... you know. Ninth graders with machine guns; it's hard to make that a happy story."
Sam relented. He even grinned. "Yeah. The phrase 'ninth graders with machine guns' isn't exactly followed by 'have a nice day'. — Michael Grant

Money and donations are an important part of our political system. They are hard power. — Joseph Nye

The best I can say, it's like this. A man's in his skin, see, like a nut in its shell ... It's hard and strong, that shell, and it's all full of him. Full of grand man-meat, man-self. And that's all. That's all there is.
A woman's a different thing entirely. Who knows where a woman begins and ends? Listen mistress, I have roots, I have roots deeper than this island. Deeper than the sea, older than the raising of the lands. I go back into the dark ... I go back into the dark! Before the moon I am, what a woman is, a woman of power, a woman's power, deeper than the roots of trees, deeper than the roots of islands, older than the Making, older than the moon. Who dares ask questions of the dark? Who'll ask the dark its name? — Ursula K. Le Guin

What, however, makes culture and ideology attractive? They become attractive when they are seen as rooted in material success and influence. Soft power is power only when it rests on a foundation of hard power. Increases in hard economic and military power produce enhanced self-confidence, arrogance, and belief in the superiority of one's own culture or soft power compared to those of other peoples and greatly increase its attractiveness to other peoples. Decreases in economic and military power lead to self-doubt, crises of identity, and efforts to find in other cultures the keys to economic, military, and political success. — Samuel P. Huntington

Meditation ... must be power of will and strength of attention, being like a flight to great heights wherein wings must be plied hard though joyfully. — James Vila Blake

Seen from that future time, when every commodity the human mind could imagine would flow from the industrial horn of plenty in dizzy abundance, this would seem a scanty, shoddy, cramped moment indeed, choked with shadows, redeemed only by what it caused to be created.
Seen from plenty, now would be hard to imagine. It would seem not quite real, an absurd time when, for no apparent reason, human beings went without things easily within the power of humanity to supply and lives did not flower as it was obvious they could. — Francis Spufford

When you face two options and each seems to please God, consider the one that displays God's glory, power and strength. This makes room for God to reveal Himself to you and show Himself through you. Don't be fearful about the hard road he may ask you to take He desires to show Himself strong in you and will encourage you to do things that require trust and faith. — Priscilla Shirer

Win demagnetized and then pried off the power chamber faring and tossed it aside. Then he started to laugh. And dance. And slap Dirck on the back. And dance some more. He was laughing so hard he was crying.
'Hey,' Dirck said, the entertainment value of his friend's behavior rapidly depreciating. 'Don't you think we ought to do what we have to and get out of here, before they send another veke? — Marcha A. Fox

For the most part, of course, the presence of the great spiritual universe surrounding us is no more noticed by us than the pressure of air on our bodies, or the action of light. Our field of attention is not wide enough for that; our spiritual senses are not sufficiently alert. Most people work so hard at developing their correspondence with the visible world, that their power of correspondence with the invisible is left in a rudimentary state. — Evelyn Underhill

I ride my bike for transportation a great deal - occasionally I ride it for fun. But I also have a generator bike that's hooked up to my solar battery pack, so if I ride 15 minutes hard on my bike, that's enough energy to toast toast, or power my computer. — Ed Begley Jr.