Barbara Tuchman Power Quotations

Diplomacy means all the wicked devices of the Old World, spheres of influence, balances of power, secret treaties, triple alliances, and, during the interim period, appeasement of Fascism.

Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others - only to lose it over themselves.

The appetite for power is old and irrepressible in humankind, and in its action almost always destructive.

Strong prejudices in an ill-formed mind are hazardous to government, and when combined with a position of power even more so.

If power corrupts, weakness in the seat of power, with its constant necessity of deals and bribes and compromising arrangements,corrupts even more.