"The highest power is demonstrated in the calm willingness to renounce all power"

"The highest power is demonstrated in the calm willingness to renounce all power; and we are shown that it is powerful, not through force, but only through the freedom of love, which, even when it is rejected, is stronger than the exultant powers of earthly violence."

- Joseph Ratzinger, 1969, Introduction to Christianity (final paragraph of Chapter III)