Charles Wright Mills Quote on Politics, Power, and Violence

"All political entities are violent entities. But the type and degree of the use or threat of external violence against other similar entities plays a specific role in the structure and fate of political communities. Not every political entity is equally "expansive" in the sense that it seeks power externally, i.e., making force available for the purpose of acquiring political power over other territories and communities, whether in the form of incorporation or [of] dependency. The political entities are thus, to varying degrees, outwardly turned entities of violence." Max Weber

"Only those understand politics who have the possibility at any given time to realize their ideas of the policies to be made, that is, those who are in power." Heinrich Böll