xxiii 'I am very keen on it myself,' Russell wrote to his publisher, Stanley
Unwin, of his project. 'I think of it as founding a new science, like Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations".'
p.1 some human desires... are essentially boundless and incapable of complete
satisfaction.
p.2 Imagination is the goad that forces human beings into restless exertion
after their primary needs have been satisfied.
p.4 It is only by realising that love of power is the cause of the activities that are important
in social affairs that history, whether ancient or modern, can be rightly interpreted.
p.4 In the course of this book I shall be concerned to prove that the
fundamental concept in social science is Power... power has many forms... No one of these can be regarded as subordinate
to any other, and there is no one form from which the others are derivative. The attempt to treat one form of power, say wealth,
in isolation, can only be partially successful... The laws of social dynamics are laws which can only be stated in
terms of power, not in terms of this or that form of power.
p.5 power, like energy, must be regarded as continually passing from any
one of its forms into any other, and it should be the business of social science to seek the laws of such transformations.
p.5 those who most desire power are, broadly speaking, those most likely to acquire it.
p.6 The laws of social dynamics are - so I shall contend
- only capable of being stated in terms of power in its various forms. In order to discover these laws, it
is necessary first to classify the forms of power, and then to review various important historical examples of the ways in
which organizations and individuals have acquired control over men's lives.
p.23 Power may be defined as the production of intended effects. It is thus a quantitative
concept... roughly... A has more power than B, if A achieves many intended effects and B only a few.
p.25 the law uses punishment, not only for the purpose of making undesired actions physically impossible,
but also as an inducement; a fine, for example, does not make an action impossible, but only unattractive.
p.131 Every State which is sufficiently powerful aims at foreign conquest... The
broad rule is that a State conquers what it can, and stops only when it reaches a frontier at which some other State
or States can exert a pressure as strong as its own.
p.146 The powers of a State in relation to foreigners depend upon war and the threat of war... Nothing
but lack of military force limits the power of one State over another
p.211 Bergson holds that the intellect is to be condemned as unduly passive and merely contemplative, and
that we only see truly during vigorous action such as a calvary charge... there is no limit to what can be achieved if desire
is sufficiently passionate... it is only in action that life can be understood.
p.212 The love of power is part of normal human nature
p.215 Love of power, in its widest sense, is the desire to be able to produce intended
effects upon the outer world, whether human or non-human.
p.216 Every desire, if it cannot be instantly gratified, brings about a wish for the ability to gratify
it, and therefore some form of the love of power.
p.221 we must judge the exercise of power by its effects, and we must therefore first make up our minds
as to what effects we desire.
p.248 But wisdom is not merely intellectual: intellect may guide and direct, but does not
generate the force that leads to action. The force must be derived from the emotions.
