People Without Meaningful Lives Seek Power Over Others

During the reign of Louis XIV, French mathematician and philosopher
Blaise Pascal diagnosed why some lust for power. In his Pensées,
Pascal wrote, “I have often said that the sole cause of man’s
unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.”
Pascal explained that, out of the inability to sit alone, arises the
human tendency to seek power as a diversion.

https://intellectualtakeout.org/2024/08/people-without-meaningful-lives-seek-power/