"Men of power have no time to read," a British labor leader once noted, "yet the men who do not read are unfit for power." - U.S. News & World Report November 30, 1992

"Put on the whole armor of God, Paul admonished the Ephesians, and you will be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Missionary Mike Key of Togo thought of Paul's message when the trembling stranger asked for shelter in his mission church. Key inquired if the man were homeless. No, he replied, but evil spirits were trying to kill him, and he sought sanctuary in the holy building. Key explained that the church building had no magical power and couldn't protect him from anything. But Jesus Christ, he added, could give not only protection but salvation, too."

The stranger stopped trembling and prayed with Key to accept Christ. Then he declared to the other believers gathered around that he was no longer afraid of evil spirits because Jesus was stronger. He would return to his own home with confidence. Then he departed, leaving his collection of fetishes and idols with the believers. He no longer needed them. He had the full armor of God." - Irma Duke

"What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life. Jesus asks, "Do you love me?" We ask, "Can we sit at your right hand and your left hand in your Kingdom?" (Mt. 20:21)...We have been tempted to replace love with power." - Henri Nouwen in Mornings with Henri J. M. Nouwen

"The long painful history of the church is the history of people ever and again tempted to choose power over love, control over the cross, being a leader over being led. Those who resisted this temptation to the end and thereby give use hope are the saints." - Henri J. M. Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus

"The modern myth of power has gravely impoverished our civilization. It has deprived it of all values that lie beyond the search for power. The beautiful, the good, the true cannot be weighed and measured. True knowledge is spiritual knowledge, which is beyond the reach of the world of quantity and therefore is disregarded by our civilization." - Paul Tournier in The Whole Person in a Broken World

"The books are many on leadership today, and some make me rather uncomfortable. I find myself reaching back to the philosophers of bygone days and one said, "Power is the ability to achieve purpose." Real power is not thunder and noise and turbulence. Real power is not like a mighty river, sweeping everything in its course. Rather, it is like a river held back, dammed up, channeled into turbines, and providing light for our homes and energy for our industries. Power is not ruthless behavior but it is disciplined behavior that has the purpose of making things better."

"Power is the ability to achieve purpose, and leadership admired is power used to achieve noble purposes. So today I salute, not those who make noise, but those who quietly do good."- Tom Haggai IGA Grocergram

"Power is his ideology, his friend, his concubine, his mistress, his passion. Everything beyond that, beyond the struggle for power, concerns him much less." -Vyacheslav Kostikov, former spokesman for Russian President Boris Yeltsin, on his onetime boss

"No one in the world today has such power as they who can make their fellow human beings feel that Christ is a reality." - Henry Van Dyke in The Upward Path

Power