Millions love Jane Austin’s novel Pride and Prejudice, but with so many autocratic rulers around the world exercising power in cruel and capricious ways, we thought it would be good to compile a miscellany of pithy quotes about Power and Prejudice that we can ponder and turn into a series of prayer points.

It is not entirely comforting to remember that the Scriptures are quite clear that evil rulers are allowed to rule for a season, and that this is consistent with biblical teachings on God’s sovereignty and purpose – even when their actions are evil. Ultimately, of course, their reign will but temporary, and they too will be subject to eternal judgement. Comforting though that thought is, that doesn’t magically make it easy the often-prolonged years during which they exercise their tyranny to endure.

It’s not every tyrant who is overthrown as dramatically and as conspicuously as Herod was. (Acts 12:21-23) Rather, we see great beasts arising with authority to oppress the saints, and who appear to triumph for a prolonged season. (See Daniel 7 and Rev 13:5-7Ff)

The 18th century Scottish-born lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, who became the Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly wrote,

‘Power may justly be compared to a great river; while kept within its bounds it is both beautiful and useful, but when it overflows its banks, it is then too impetuous to be stemmed; it bears down all before it, and brings destruction and desolation wherever it comes.’

This is true of people’s spirituality too; without the discipline of proper ‘banks’, it can easily stray into very  strange beliefs and practices.

As long ago as the sixth century BC, Pittacus declared, ‘The measure of man is what he does with power’. Another Hamilton, Alexander, one of the founding fathers of America, is credited with saying, ‘Those who stand for nothing (i.e. who do not have strong principles to undergird their lives) will fall for anything.’

‘When a man has cast his longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.’ (Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father and 3rd President)

No wonder that Thomas Paine, a key 18th century Founding Father, decreed that ‘No extraordinary power should be lodged in any one individual.’

‘Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous.’ (William Proxmire, longest-serving senator from Wisconsin)

‘Power breeds isolation. Isolation leads to the capricious use of power. In turn, the capricious use of power breaks down the normal channels of communication between the leader and the people whom he leads. This ultimately means the deterioration of power and with it the capacity to sustain unity in our society. This is the problem we face today.’ (George Reedy, the tenth White House Press Secretary).

‘The only prize much cared for by the powerful is power.’ (Oliver Wendell Holmes Junior, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1902-1932)

‘Those in power want only to perpetuate it.’ (Justice William O Douglas)

‘As for the men in power, they are so anxious to establish the myth of infallibility that they do their utmost to ignore truth.’ (Boris Pasternak, Russian poet and novelist)

‘Power dements even more than it corrupts, lowering the guard of foresight and raising the haste of action.’ (Will Durant, best known for his eleven-volume work, The Story of Civilization, which contains and details the history of Eastern and Western civilizations.)

‘I often say of George Washington that he was one of the few in the whole history of the world who was not carried away by power.’ (Robert Frost, poet)

‘I could not stop something I knew was wrong and terrible. I had an awful sense of powerlessness.’ (Andrei Sakharov, Soviet physicist and human rights campaigner)

‘The deepest principle of human nature is the craving to be appreciated.’ (William James, philosopher and psychologist)

‘Most of us would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.’ (Norman Vincent Peale)

Always, ultimately, we must come back to Jesus’s challenge: ‘What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul?’ (Matthew 16:26)**

‘Hands are skilled in doing evil; the ruler demands gifts, the judge accepts bribes, the powerful dictate what they desire — they all conspire together.’ (Micah 7:3)

‘He saves the needy from the sword in their mouth; he saves them from the clutches of the powerful. So the poor have hope, and injustice shuts its mouth.’ (Job 5:15-16)

“‘People cry out under a load of oppression; they plead for relief from the arm of the powerful. But no one says, ‘Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night.”’ (Job 35:9-10)

‘Trust not in human wisdom but in the power of God.’ (1 Cor. 2:5)

‘We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.’ (Col. 1:9-11)

‘I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in His holy people, and His incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength He exerted when He raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at his right hand in the heavenly realms.’ (Eph. 1:18-20)

‘We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign.’ (Rev. 11:17)

Prejudice

‘Nothing is so firmly believed as that which is least known.’ (Michel de Montaigne, French renaissance philosopher)

Henry David Thoreau reminds us that ‘It is never too late to give up your prejudices,’ but as Samuel Johnson had warned a century earlier: ‘Prejudice cannot be removed by argument because it is not founded on reason.’

‘Prejudices are dangerous because if we believe absurdities we shall commit atrocities.’ (Voltaire)

‘Opinions founded on prejudice are always sustained with the greatest violence.’ (Francis Jeffrey, 19th century Scottish judge)

‘Prejudice may be defined as thinking ill of others without sufficient warrant.’ (Gordon W Allport, one of the founding figures of personality psychology.) He also said, ‘Given a thimbleful of fact, we rush to make generalisations as large as a tub.’*

‘People who are aware of, and ashamed of, their prejudices are well on the road to eliminating them.’

‘God judges everyone the same. It doesn’t matter who they are.’ (‘For there is no favouritism with God.’ Rom. 2:11 ERV, CSB)

Anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them.’ (1 John 2:11)

* This becomes a more pressing matter when facts are deliberately massaged, manipulated and taken out of context in order to provoke a particular response. Even relatively small deviations from the truth can intensify people’s viscal reactions against certain categories of people.

** No issues touch us more profoundly or universally,’ Richard Foster declares than money, sex and power. ‘No topics cause more controversy. No human realities have greater power to bless or curse. No three things have been more sought after or are more in need of a Christian response.’ Writing with regard to Foster’s book ‘Money, Sex and Power, Gerard Kelly says,  ‘Don’t assume for one moment that this book is anti-money, anti-sex or anti-power: the author has a healthy respect and admiration for all three as sacred gifts of a loving creator. What he does urge us to do, though, is to “live rightly” in respect of these key areas.’

Photo by Heera Ramesh on Unsplash