I used to work very long hours. Then I started to realize that the stuff that I was writing in the late afternoons, I was generally throwing out. So I quit earlier than I used to.
Robert CaroRead
If you really want to show power in its larger aspects, you need to show the effects on the powerless, for good or ill - the human cost of public works. That's what I try to do, show not only how power works but its effect on people.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Power should be understood by its impact on the vulnerable; true accountability lies in seeing its human consequences.
In this quote, Robert Caro emphasizes that true power is not just about authority or control, but rather how that power affects those who are powerless. He believes that revealing the human cost of public works and decisions is vital to truly comprehending the nature of power. By focusing on the impact of power on individuals and communities, we can better understand its implications and responsibilities.
Themes
PowerImpactHuman CostPublic WorksAccountability
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about urban development, the quote can be used to highlight the importance of considering community impact.
More from Robert Caro
All quotes →Long Island is shaped the way it is largely because of Robert Moses. Long Island is a perfect example of how political power shapes people's lives every day.
Robert CaroRead
What would be the good of rushing? You want these books to last.
Robert CaroRead
I sometimes feel that if your book sells more than 20 years, then there's something in it that you can say, gee, I did something that endures, that's timeless
Robert CaroRead
It's very easy to fool yourself that you're working, you know, when you're really not working very hard. I mean, I'm very lazy. So for me, I would always have an excuse, you know, to go - quit early, go to a museum, you know. So I do everything I can to make myself remember this is a job. I keep a schedule.
Robert CaroRead
I am trying to make clear through my writing something which I believe: that biography- history in general- can be literature in the deepest and highest sense of that term.
Robert CaroRead
Similar quotes
In order to obtain and hold power, a man must love it.
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…there would be no powerful will binding hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature…And yet she had loved him- sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being.
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I call that man awake who, with conscious knowledge and understanding, can perceive the deep unreasoning powers in his soul, his whole innermost strength, desire and weakness, and knows how to reckon with himself.
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Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim.
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She saw too that man has the power of exceeding himself, of becoming himself more entirely and profoundly than he is, - truths which have only recently begun to be seen in Europe and seem even now too great for its common intelligence.
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