49 Powerful Force Quotes
Nov. 13, 2024, 6:45 a.m.
In a world driven by ambition, creativity, and transformation, the concept of ‘force’ holds a remarkable power over our lives. Whether it’s the unseen energy that motivates us to pursue our dreams or the strength that allows us to overcome obstacles, force is an undeniable element of the human experience. This curated collection of 49 powerful force quotes is designed to inspire you, challenge your perceptions, and reignite the dynamic energy within. Through the wisdom and insight of thinkers, leaders, and creators, each quote serves as a reminder of the incredible potential that lies in harnessing the force that propels us forward. Whether you seek motivation, reflection, or empowerment, these quotes are sure to leave a lasting impact, encouraging you to tap into the force that shapes your journey and the world around you.
1. “Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.” - Albert Einstein
2. “The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato.Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.” - Karl Raimund Popper
3. “I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.” - Henry David Thoreau
4. “In the present case it is a little inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible to any public office of trust or profit in the Republic. But I do not repine, for I am a subject of it only by force of arms.” - H.L. Mencken
5. “If someone puts their hands on you make sure they never put their hands on anybody else again.” - Malcom X
6. “The name Alaska is probably an abbreviation of Unalaska, derived from the original Aleut word agunalaksh, which means "the shores where the sea breaks its back." The war between water and land is never-ending. Waves shatter themselves in spent fury against the rocky bulwarks of the coast; giant tides eat away the sand beaches and alter the entire contour of an island overnight; williwaw winds pour down the side of a volcano like snow sliding off a roof, building to a hundred-mile velocity in a matter of minutes and churning the ocean into a maelstrom where the stoutest vessels founder.” - Corey Ford
7. “Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessman's tool is values; the bureaucrat's tool is fear.” - Ayn Rand
8. “If your heart tends to force friends to do as you say,seed of discord is being planted in your relationship.” - Toba Beta
9. “...But the Mahommedan religion increases, instead of lessening, the fury of intolerance. It was originally propagated by the sword, and ever since, its votaries have been subject, above the people of all other creeds, to this form of madness. In a moment the fruits of patient toil, the prospects of material prosperity, the fear of death itself, are flung aside. The more emotional Pathans are powerless to resist. All rational considerations are forgotten. Seizing their weapons, they become Ghazis—as dangerous and as sensible as mad dogs: fit only to be treated as such. While the more generous spirits among the tribesmen become convulsed in an ecstasy of religious bloodthirstiness, poorer and more material souls derive additional impulses from the influence of others, the hopes of plunder and the joy of fighting. Thus whole nations are roused to arms. Thus the Turks repel their enemies, the Arabs of the Soudan break the British squares, and the rising on the Indian frontier spreads far and wide. In each case civilisation is confronted with militant Mahommedanism. The forces of progress clash with those of reaction. The religion of blood and war is face to face with that of peace.” - Winston Churchill
10. “I don't know you well enough to force stuff on you.""You mean, if you knew me better, you'd force stuff on me like everybody else?""It's possible," I said. "That's how people live in the real world: forcing stuff on each other.""You wouldn't do that. I can tell. I'm an expert when it comes to forcing stuff and having stuff forced on you. You're just not that type. That's why I can relax with you. Do you have any idea how many people there are in the world who like to force stuff on people and have stuff forced on them? Tons! And then they make a big fuss, like, 'I forced her,' 'You forced me'! That's what they like. But I don't like it. I just do it 'cause I have to.” - Haruki Murakami
11. “Perhaps not willingly, but pain can make a man do things he wouldn't willingly do.” - Anne Bishop
12. “If we can use an H-bomb--and as you said it's no checker game; it's real, it's war and nobody is fooling around--isn't it sort of ridiculous to go crawling around in the weeds, throwing knives and maybe getting yourself killed . . . and even losing the war . . . when you've got a real weapon you can use to win? What's the point in a whole lot of men risking their lives with obsolete weapons when one professor type can do so much more just by pushing a button?'Zim didn't answer at once, which wasn't like him at all. Then he said softly, 'Are you happy in the Infantry, Hendrick? You can resign, you know.'Hendrick muttered something; Zim said, 'Speak up!'I'm not itching to resign, sir. I'm going to sweat out my term.'I see. Well, the question you asked is one that a sergeant isn't really qualified to answer . . . and one that you shouldn't ask me. You're supposed to know the answer before you join up. Or you should. Did your school have a course in History and Moral Philosophy?'What? Sure--yes, sir.'Then you've heard the answer. But I'll give you my own--unofficial--views on it. If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cuts its head off?'Why . . . no, sir!'Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy with an H-Bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an ax. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him . . . but to make him do what you want him to do. Not killing . . . but controlled and purposeful violence. But it's not your business or mine to decide the purpose of the control. It's never a soldier's business to decide when or where or how--or why--he fights; that belongs to the statesmen and the generals. The statesmen decide why and how much; the generals take it from there and tell us where and when and how. We supply the violence; other people--"older and wiser heads," as they say--supply the control. Which is as it should be. That's the best answer I can give you. If it doesn't satisfy you, I'll get you a chit to go talk to the regimental commander. If he can't convince you--then go home and be a civilian! Because in that case you will certainly never make a soldier.” - Robert A. Heinlein
13. “The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil, in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to someone else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.” - John Stuart Mill
14. “Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish.” - Anne Bradstreet
15. “When I was little, I had this science book. There was a section on 'What would happen to the world if there was no friction?' Answer: 'Everything on earth would fly into space from the centrifugal force of revolution.' That was my mood.” - Haruki Murakami
16. “Without knowing the force of words, it is impossible to know more.” - Confucius
17. “Evil itself may be relentless. I will grant you that, but love is relentless too. Friendship is a relentless force. Family is a relentless force. Faith is relentless force. The human spirit is relentless, and the human heart outlasts - and can defeat - even the most relentless force of all, which is time.” - Dean Koontz
18. “Incurable diseases will eventually force mankind to justify disruptive nanotech and genetic engineering.” - Toba Beta [Betelgeuse Incident]
19. “Whatever happens, we have gotThe Maxim gun, and they have not.” - Hilaire Belloc
20. “Whether I fail or succeed shall be no man's doing but my own.I am the force.” - Elaine Maxwell
21. “We tend to think of the erotic as an easy, tantalizing sexual arousal. I speak of the erotic as the deepest life force, a force which moves us toward living in a fundamental way.” - Audre Lorde
22. “Man masters nature not by force, but by understanding” - Jacob Bronowski
23. “The energy it took to exit mother’s womb is the same force required to manifest a dream...a different kind of struggle. Push, push, push!” - T.F. Hodge
24. “When a man has a gift in speaking the truth, brute aggression is no longer his security blanket for approval. He, on the contrary, spends most of his energy trying to tone it down because his very nature is already offensive enough.” - Criss Jami
25. “Time and time again does the pride of man influence his very own fall. While denying it, one gradually starts to believe that he is the authority, or that he possesses great moral dominion over others, yet it is spiritually unwarranted. By that point he loses steam; in result, he falsely begins trying to prove that unwarranted dominion by seizing the role of a condemner.” - Criss Jami
26. “When she reached the shallow end, Kingsley held out his hand and pulled her up, but she lost her step and fell into his arms, her body crushing momentarily against his.” - Melissa de la Cruz
27. “Jack leaped over the gate, his sword aflame. To vanquish his foe and rescue his love.” - Melissa de la Cruz
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29. “There was just such a man when I was young—an Austrian who invented a new way of life and convinced himself that he was the chap to make it work. He tried to impose his reformation by the sword, and plunged the civilized world into misery and chaos. But the thing which this fellow had overlooked, my friend, was that he had a predecessor in the reformation business, called Jesus Christ. Perhaps we may assume that Jesus knew as much as the Austrian did about saving people. But the odd thing is that Jesus did not turn the disciples into storm troopers, burn down the Temple at Jerusalem, and fix the blame on Pontius Pilate. On the contrary, he made it clear that the business of the philosopher was to make ideas available, and not to impose them on people.” - T.H. White
30. “Organized force alone enables the quiet and the weak to go about their business and to sleep securely in their beds, safe from the violent without or within.” - Alfred Thayer Mahan
31. “Ender didn't like fighting. He didn't like Peter's kind, the strong against the weak, and he didn't like his own kind either, the smart against the stupid.” - Orson Scott Card
32. “There is a force that drives everything in this universe;you may call it anything you like, names that fit in tongue;when you're close to it, you have the power to do anything.” - Toba Beta
33. “Your god, sir, is the World. In my eyes, you, too, if not an infidel, are an idolater. I conceive that you ignorantly worship: in all things you appear to me too superstitious. Sir, your god, your great Bel, your fish-tailed Dagon, rises before me as a demon. You, and such as you, have raised him to a throne, put on him a crown, given him a sceptre. Behold how hideously he governs! See him busied at the work he likes best -- making marriages. He binds the young to the old, the strong to the imbecile. He stretches out the arm of Mezentius and fetters the dead to the living. In his realm there is hatred -- secret hatred: there is disgust -- unspoken disgust: there is treachery -- family treachery: there is vice -- deep, deadly, domestic vice. In his dominions, children grow unloving between parents who have never loved: infants are nursed on deception from their very birth: they are reared in an atmosphere corrupt with lies ... All that surrounds him hastens to decay: all declines and degenerates under his sceptre. Your god is a masked Death.” - Charlotte Brontë
34. “Can violence and the use of force to effect change upon the universe be left to the young? Do they see what was, what is, and what might yet be? Have they suffered, watched evil fall upon the good, or good upon the evil?Or should the burden of violence be left to those who can bear it most lightly—upon those who have closed their minds or their feelings? How can they understand the suffering that they must inflict?Should the burden of force be laid upon the short-lived, who will not see the consequences of their actions? How can they dispense force with compassion if they can escape the knowledge of what they do?...The greater the force brought to bear, the older and wiser must be the entity who wields it. Wisdom allows sorrow. Age allows experience, and knowledge reinforces wisdom and experience....Those who would bear the burden of force must be those who are strong and do not seek it, for those who seek force would misuse it, and those who are weak would shy from what they must do....Findings of the Colloquy[Translated from the Farhkan]1227-E.N.P.” - L.E. Modesitt Jr
35. “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade...” - Ayn Rand
36. “There is a force more powerful than steam and electricity: the will.” - Fernán Caballero
37. “The law of centrifugal force seems to be as true for the human condition as it is for the Newtonian mechanics. The faster our lives spin, the more things tend to fly apart.” - Richard Paul Evans
38. “Force is incomplete and therefore has to be fed energy constantly. Power is total and complete in itself and requires nothing from outside.” - David Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D.
39. “Perceptual fields are limited by the attractor patterns that they're associated with. This means that the capacity to recognize significant factors in a given situation is limited by the context that arises from the level of consciousness of the observer. The motive of the viewer automatically determines what is seen; causality is, therefore, ascribed to factors that are, in fact, a function of the biases of the observer and aren't at all instrumental in the situation itself.” - David Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D.
40. “After all, it isn't the facts of one's environment, but one's attitude toward them, that determines whether one will be defeated or victorious.” - David Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D.
41. “When magic through nerves and reason passes, Imagination, force, and passion will thunder. The portrait of the world is changed.” - Dejan Stojanovic
42. “Sturm, Swung, Wucht” - Erwin Rommel
43. “Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it as it is to its victims—the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates.” - Paul Hoffman
44. “Enthusiasm is the energy and force that builds literal momentum of the human soul and mind.” - Bryant McGill
45. “An unknown force is calling mePerhaps the voice of that star perched on the last heightPerhaps the desire to see the spaces that conceal Europe” - Hélène Baronne d’Oettingen
46. “Subject to the law(s) of nature, hate is born to die” - T.F. Hodge
47. “To submit isn’t to be forced. It’s to yield to a force greater than your own, in order to become part of the whole.” - Dianna Hardy
48. “Your road may turn around, but at one time, at some point, you'll definitely have a chance to be yourself.” - Dee
49. “Like any man, he was coward enough to fear great force; but he was not quite coward enough to admire it.” - G.K. Chesterton
