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Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

 

Top 40 Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

 

No 1 (Best quote!)Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

Power can be taken, but not given. The process of the taking is empowerment in itself.

- Gloria Steinem (1934- ), American feminist writer, pictured right.

 Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

So the German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-45), pictured right, says:

Action springs not from thought but from a readiness for responsibility.

 Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

Therefore the American management writer,Robert Greenleaf, pictured right, says:

Responsibility is an attitude.

 

 

No 2Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.

- Seneca (4BC-65 AD), Greek philosopher, pictured right.

 

 

No 3

If self-regulation worked, Moses would have come down Mount Sinai with the ten guidelines.

Anon.

 

 

No 4Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

All power is trust.

- Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81) British prime minister, pictured right.

 

Other thinkers agree:

Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

 

Trust has to be earned, but in order to be earned it has first to be given

- Charles Handy, pictured right, in The Age of Unreason, 1989

 Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.

- Booker T. Washington (1856-1915), African American leader, pictured right,

Empowerment and Freedom Quotes
 

Trust is the lubrication that makes it possible for organizations to work.

- Warren Bennis, pictured right, and Burt Nanus, pictured right below, in Leaders (1985)Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

 

Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American writer and philosopher, pictured right below.Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

 

 

No 5Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

If you empower dummies, you get bad decisions quicker,

- Richard Teerlink, chief executive of Harley-Davidson 1989-97, pictured right.

 

 

No 6Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

There is only one way... to get anybody to do anything... that is by making the other person want to do it,

-Dale Carnegie, pictured right, in How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936)

 

 

Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

No 7

Liberty is power.

- Voltaire (1694-1778) French writer and philosopher, pictured right.

Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

Cicero (106-43 BC), the Roman philosopher and politician, pictured right, puts it this way:

Freedom is participation in power

 

 

No 8Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), American president, pictured right.

 

 

No 9Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish,

- Sam Walton (1918-1992), American founder of Wal-Mart stores, pictured right.

 

 

No 10Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.

- Herodotus (c.485–c.425), Greek historian, pictured right.

 

 

No 11Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibilities and most people are frightened of responsibility.

- Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Austrian psychiatrist, pictured right.

 

 Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

The Czech writer, Franz Kafka (1883-1924), pictured right in his 1925 book The Trial, agrees:

It is often safer to be in chains than to be free.

 

 

No 12Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

To mature means to take responsibility for your life.

Fritz Perls (1893-1970) German-born American psychotherapist, pictured right.

 

 

No 13Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

The difficulty we have in accepting responsibility for our behaviour lies in the desire to avoid the pain of the consequences of that behaviour.

- M. Scott Peck (1936-2005) American psychiatrist, pictured right.

 

 

No 14Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

With rights come responsibilities.

- Thomas (Tom) Paine (1737-1809), English philosopher, pictured right.


Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

 

Nelson Mandela (1918- ), the South African leader, pictured right, also says

With freedom come responsibilities

 

Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), the English writer, pictured right, also comments:

Power without responsibility: the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages. 

 

 

 

No 15Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

Power is the ability to fulfil purpose.

- Martin Luther King (1929-68), American civil rights leader, pictured right.

He also says

Power at best is love implementing the demands of justice.  

 

 

No 16Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

Real freedom is freedom from fear.

- Aung San Suu Kyi (1945- ), Burmese leader, pictured right.

 

 

No 17Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

Acting responsibly is not a matter of strengthening our reason but of deepening our feelings for the welfare of others.

(Alberto in the 1991 novel Sophie’s World)

- Jostein Gaarder (1952- ), pictured right, Norwegian writer.

 

 

No 18Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

A company will get nowhere if all of the thinking is left to management.

- Akio Morita (1921-1999), co-founder of Sony, pictured right.

 

 

No 19Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

Nothing so conclusively proves a man’s ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself.

- Tom Watson Jr., 1914-93), boss of IBM 1956-71, pictured right.

Empowerment and Freedom Quotes 

 

No 20

Empowerment is not abandonment.Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

- Christopher Bartlett ,pictured right above, and Sumantra Ghoshal, pictured right, in The Individualized Corporation (1997)

 

 

No 21Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

A good leader should possess and infuse into those around him courage to accept responsibility.

- Henri Fayol, pictured right, General and Industrial Management (1916)

 Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

John Harvey-Jones (1924-2008), boss of ICI 1982-7, the British chemicals company, pictured right, agrees:

Problems can only be solved by the people who have them. You have to try and coax them...into seeing ways in which they can help themselves.

 

 

No 22Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

Power corrupts, but lack of power corrupts absolutely.

- Adlai Stevenson (1900-65), American politician (pictured right).

 Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

Rosabeth Moss Kanter, pictured right, in her 1977 book Men and Women of the Corporation says something similar:

Powerlessness corrupts. Absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely.

 

 

No 23Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

Empowerment means feeling confident to act on your own authority.

- Ricardo Semler, pictured right, Maverick! (1993)

 

 

No 24Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

Give me liberty, or give me death!

- Patrick Henry (1736-99), American revolutionary, pictured right.

 

 

No 25Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

There is no good and evil, there is only power and those too weak to see it.

(Professor Quirrell in the 1997 novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone)

J. K. Rowling (1965- ), pictured right, English writer.

 

 

No 26Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.

- Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78), Swiss philosopher, pictured right.

 

Rousseau also says:

I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.

 

 

No 27Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

Man is condemned to be free, because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does,

- Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80), French philosopher, pictured right.

 

Sartre also comments:

A man is what he wills himself to be.

 

 

No 28

The truth shall make you free,

 (John 8:32 in the Bible)

 - Jesus (c6 BC-c33 AD), founder of Christianity

 

 

No 29Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

The only purpose for which power can be rightly exercised over any member of a civilized community against his will is to prevent harm to others.

(known as John Stuart Mill’s “Harm Principle”).

- John Stuart Mill (1806-73), pictured right, English philosopher  

 

Mill also comments:

If all mankind, minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

 

 

No 30Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God,

- John Bradshaw (1602–59) English judge at the trial of Charles I, pictured right.

 

 

No 31Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

Knowledge is power.

- Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher and politician, pictured right,

 

 

No 32Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

The more you free your people to think for themselves, the more they can help you.

- Richard Branson (1950- ), English founder of Virgin, pictured right.

 

 

No 33Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

Freedom is the opportunity to act, not action itself.

- Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997), Russian-born British philosopher, pictured right,

 

 

No 34Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

If you lead them with morality and guide them with li [social correctness], they will develop a sense of honour and shame and will do good of their own accord.

- Confucius (551-479 BC), Chinese philosopher, pictured right,

 

 

No 35Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.

- Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), Polish-born German philosopher and economist, pictured right.

 

 

No 36Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

What is the seal of liberation? - No longer being ashamed in front of oneself,

- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher, pictured right,

 

 

No 37Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

The measure of a man is what he does with power.

- Plato (427-347 BC), Greek philosopher, pictured right,

 

 

No 38Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

To understand is to be free.

- Benedict (or Baruch) Spinoza (1632-77), Dutch philosopher, pictured right,

 

 

No 39Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

- Edmund Burke (1729-97), Irish-born British Member of Parliament, pictured right,

 

 

No 40Empowerment and Freedom Quotes

He thinks too much: such men are dangerous,

(Julius Caesar in Julius Caesar - talking about Cassius).

- William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright, pictured right

 

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