Quotes about Influence

One advantage of not being in power is that we can dream of reshaping the world exactly as we please.

Surveys show our standing around the world is higher than when I was elected to this office, and when it comes to every important international issue, people of the world do not look to Beijing or Moscow to lead - they call us.

From infancy, I have relied on the fiercely sweet spirits of black men; and this is abundantly clear in my work.

The same strength which has extended our power beyond a continent has also interwoven our destiny with the destiny of many peoples and brought us into a vast web of history in which other wills, running in oblique or contrasting directions to our own, inevitably hinder or contradict what we most fervently desire. We cannot simply have our way, not even when we believe our way to have the "happiness of mankind" as its promise.

Power," said Henry Adams, "is poison"; and it is a poison which blinds the eyes of moral insight and lames the will of moral purpose. The

that the failure of governments is due to the pressure of economic interest upon them rather than to the "limited capacities of human wisdom.

Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted; and pure love without power is destroyed.

Words and actions are transient things, and being once past, are nothing; but the effect of them on an immortal soul may be endless.

When spiritual leaders have done their jobs, the people around them have encountered God and obeyed his will.

Church practice has been more influenced by Plato than by Jesus. We invariably prefer the universal synthesis, the answer that settles all the dust and resolves every question even when it is not entirely true over the mercy and grace of God.

In the second half of life, we do not have strong and final opinions about everything, every event, or most people, as much as we allow things and people to delight us, sadden us, and truly influence us.

a person must pass the lessons learned on to others—or there has been no real gift at all.