Whohath not known ill fortune, never knew himself, or his own virtue.

The exercise of power is determined by thousands ofinteractions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, allthe more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyonehas a small part of himself in both.

It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's moretrue that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted byother things than power.

Undernormal conditions, most people tend to see what they want to see, hear what theywant to hear, and do what they want to do; in conflicts, their positionsbecome even more rigid and fixed.

Conflictcan destroy a team which hasn't spent time learning to deal with it.

Conflictlies at the core of innovation.

Silenceis as full of potential wisdom and wit as the unshown marble of greatsculpture. The silent bear no witness against themselves.

It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much.

Ignorancedoesn't kill you, but it does make you sweat a lot.

Negotiatingin the classic diplomatic sense assumes parties are more anxious to agreethan to disagree.

Adversity attracts the man of character. He seeks out the better joy, responsibility.

The most exquisite paradox… as soon as you give itall up, you can have it all. As long as you want power, you can't have it.The minute you don't want power, you'll have more than you ever dreamedpossible.