Quote by Charles A. Reich, author of “The Greening of America”, from a lecture he gave on power and the law:

“Power means to me pretty much the same thing as freedom. Power is the thing that everyone wants the most they can possibly have of. That is, skiing is power, sex appeal is power, the ability to make yourself heard to your congressperson is power. Anything that comes out of you and goes out into the world is power. And, in addition to that, the ability to be open, to appreciate, to receive love, to respond to others, to listen to music, to understand literature—all of that is power.

“By power, I mean human faculties exercised to the largest possible degree. So, in a way, in a large sense, by power, I mean individual intelligence. Now, when you reach out to another person, through the energy and the creativity which is in you, and that other person responds, you are exercising power. When you make somebody do something against their will, that, to me, is not power at all. That is force. And force, to me, is the negation of power.”

More quotes by Robert A. Reich