Power is the sum total of the wills of the mass, transfered by express or tactic agreement to rulers chosen by the masses.

Leo Tolstoy
About This Quote

Power is the sum total of the wills of the mass, transfered by express or tactic agreement to rulers chosen by the masses. This quote explains how power is a result of a choice made by a group of people, and how the leader of the group has power over others. For example, if a group of people decide not to pay their taxes for a certain year, they have made a choice to not pay. The government will decide what to do with this "power" they have been given.

Source: War And Peace

Some Similar Quotes
  1. Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true. - Unknown

  2. As time and space are bent by gravity, so too is truth bent by power. - James Rozoff

  3. It is the destiny of the weak to be devoured by the strong. - Otto Von Bismarck

  4. The worship of power is an old religion. - George Santayana

  5. What a curious power words have. - Tadeusz Borowski

More Quotes By Leo Tolstoy
  1. I think... if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.

  2. Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.

  3. Love. The reason I dislike that word is that it means too much for me, far more than you can understand."- Anna Karenina {Anna Karenina}

  4. I've always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be.

  5. They've got no idea what happiness is, they don't know that without this love there is no happiness or unhappiness for us--there is no life.

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