Napoleon Bonaparte? Henry Kissinger? Christine Sutherland? Constant Louis Wairy? Graham Greene? William Styron? John Corry? Art Buchwald? Anonymous?
Question for Quote Investigator: The quest to achieve power is exhilarating and seductive. Also, an individual who has acquired great power becomes remarkably attractive. These two different observations can be expressed with the following sayings:
(1) Power is the greatest of all aphrodisiacs
(2) Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac
(3) Power is one hell of an aphrodisiac
The following three sayings are thematically related:
(A) Fame is a potent aphrodisiac
(B) Class is a potent aphrodisiac
(C) Recognition has always been the ultimate aphrodisiac
The first saying has been attributed to French leader Napoleon Bonaparte, and the second saying has been attributed to U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger. I am skeptical of these ascriptions. Would you please explore this topic?
Reply from Quote Investigator: QI has not yet found substantive evidence ascribing this saying to Napoleon Bonaparte who died in 1821. Kissinger received credit in January 1971 for the saying about power, but it was already in circulation.
This topic is complex, and this article presents a snapshot of current research. Currently, QI believes that journalist John Corry deserves credit for the adage depicting power as an aphrodisiac in July 1970.
Below is an overview with dates and attributions:
1960: Fame is a potent aphrodisiac (Graham Greene)
1966 Dec: Fame is a potent aphrodisiac (John Gunther)
1969 Apr: Class is a potent aphrodisiac (William Styron)
1970 Jul: Power … being one hell of an aphrodisiac (John Corry)
1970 Jul 16: Power acts as an aphrodisiac (Attributed to John Corry by Art Buchwald in paraphrased form)
1971 Jan 19: Power is the great aphrodisiac (Attributed to Henry Kissinger by journalist Hedrick Smith)
1972 Feb 04: Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac (Attributed to Henry Kissinger by Peter G. Peterson according to journalist Betty Beale)
1978: Power is an aphrodisiac (Attributed to an anonymous politician)
1979: Power … is the greatest of all aphrodisiacs (Attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte by Christine Sutherland)
1979 Nov: Recognition has always been the ultimate aphrodisiac (Michael Coakley)
1999: Power … is the greatest of all aphrodisiacs (Attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte by Constant Louis Wairy according to Random House Webster’s Quotationary)
Below are details for selected citations in chronological order.
In 1960 English writer Graham Greene published the novel “A Burnt-Out Case”. One character told another that achieving fame increased one’s attractiveness to potential lovers:1
“You are famous among your readers and fame is a potent aphrodisiac.”
In 1966 “Esquire” magazine published the story “Dinner for Three” by John Gunther which contained the following:2
Fame is a potent aphrodisiac. All women like to sleep with history, as the ancient adage says.
In 1969 literary figure William Styron was interviewed in the “Boston Sunday Globe”, and he said the following:3
It’s equally a class thing and an erotic one: class is a potent aphrodisiac. And I’m not the only novelist to employ that motif. Dreiser did it in “An American Tragedy.”
In July 1970 journalist and critic John Corry published an article titled “Washington, Sex, and Power” in “Harper’s Magazine”. Corry employed a version of the saying about power. This was the first instance found by QI that mentioned power:4
Power, as anyone there will tell you, is what Washington is supposed to be about, not to mention it being one hell of an aphrodisiac, as well.
On July 16, 1970, John Corry’s article caught the eye of widely syndicated columnist Art Buchwald who repeated a paraphrased version of the saying:5
Corry’s conclusions are that there is not as much sex in Washington as one might think, and while power acts as an aphrodisiac, more men in high positions get their kicks from politics than they do from bedfellows.
In January 1971 “The New York Times” published a profile article about Henry Kissinger which credited him with a version of the saying:6
As a 47-year-old divorcé, he makes society news by squiring such glamour girls as Gloria Steinem in New York, Joanna Barnes and Jill St. John in Hollywood and Barbara Howar in Washington.
Power, he has observed, “is the great aphrodisiac.”
In September 1971 “Cosmopolitan” magazine credited Henry Kissinger with the same version of the saying:7
“Power,” says Henry A. Kissinger, presidential adviser and the nation’s best-known bachelor, “is the great aphrodisiac.” Perhaps that is why every year thousands of single women come to work and live in Washington, D.C.—probably the only city in the U.S. where power counts more than either money or social breeding.
In February 1972 society columnist Betty Beale presented an anecdote from U.S. Secretary of Commerce Peter G. Peterson who credited Henry Kissinger with a version of the saying using the word “ultimate”:8
Peterson said he told Kissinger, he was very suspicious of his fame as a great beau and that he thought there was an enormous gap between rhetoric and performance.
Retorted the witty foreign policy adviser, “What you don’t understand is that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”
In April 1972 “The Wall Street Journal” presented the same anecdote:9
Friction persists between Commerce Secretary Peterson and Nixon lieutenant Kissinger. Peterson tries to make light of it. He recalls telling Kissinger that the “womanizer” reputation must be exaggerated, offering to help dispel it. The reported reply: “Peterson, what you don’t understand is that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”
In 1978 the science fiction novel “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” by Addison E. Steele included an anonymous instance of the saying:10
As an old Earth politician had once commented in a moment of uncharacteristic candor, power is an aphrodisiac.
In 1979 Christine Sutherland published a biography titled “Marie Walewska: Napoleon’s Great Love”. Sutherland credited Napoleon Bonaparte with the saying. Unfortunately, Sutherland did not give a precise citation. The ellipses in the excerpt below appeared in the book text:11
We know from contemporary memoirs that at this particular stage of his life Napoleon’s attitude to the fair sex was one of cynicism and contempt. ‘Women’, he would say to his associates, ‘they belong to the highest bidder. Power is what they like — it is the greatest of all aphrodisiacs, they are fascinated by it. … I take them and forget them. …’
Also, in 1979 “The Book of Quotes” compiled by Barbara Rowes contained the following entry:12
Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
—Henry Kissinger
In August 1979 journalist Michael Coakley described cruising on Van Nuys Boulevard in Los Angeles. Coakley employed a variant of the saying with the word “recognition”:13
Come Wednesday they turn out by the tens of thousands, gas shortage or no, honking and fender-bending their way through a desperate evening of narcissism. They do it because it is a way of just maybe being noticed in a town where recognition has always been the ultimate aphrodisiac.
In October 1979 “The Spectator” magazine of London published a review of Christine Sutherland’s biography of Marie Walewska. The review repeated the saying while crediting Napoleon:14
Apart from any personal inclination she might have felt towards this legendary hero who at 37 had conquered Europe (‘Power’, he would say, ‘is the greatest of all aphrodisiacs’) Marie was a Polish patriot. By becoming Napoleon’s mistress, as she very soon did, despite her scruples, she was, she firmly believed, striking a blow for her country’s independence.
In 1980 U.S. TV critic Don Freeman published “In a Flea’s Navel: A Critics Love Affair with Television”. Freeman attributed the saying to Kissinger, but Freeman also imagined that Napoleon Bonaparte or Julius Caesar might have employed the same remark:15
… Henry Kissinger’s line that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, which Napoleon may have whispered to Josephine. And Caesar to Cleopatra.
In 1999 “Random House Webster’s Quotationary” editor Leonard Roy Frank contained the following entry:16
[Women] belong to the highest bidder. Power is what they like — it is the greatest of all aphrodisiacs.
NAPOLEON (1769-1821). Attributed. In Constant Louis Wairy (his valet), Mémoirs de Constant, premier valet de l’empereur, 1831.
In conclusion, the earliest match to the saying about fame known to QI appeared in a 1960 novel by Graham Greene. The earliest match to the saying about power appeared in a July 1970 magazine article by journalist John Corry.
The attribution to Napoleon Bonaparte appeared in a 1979 book by Christine Sutherland. Reference works such as the “Random House Webster’s Quotationary” have suggested that the saying was ascribed to Napoleon in the multivolume memoirs of Constant Louis Wairy in the 1830s, but QI has been unable to find this quotation in French in this work; nor has QI found the quotation in English translations of this work. Hence, the attribution to Napoleon is currently unsupported. Perhaps future researchers will clarify this issue.
Image Notes: Picture of candy hearts from Jacqueline Brandwayn at Unsplash. The image has been cropped and resized.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to George Salt whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration.
- 1961 (1960 Copyright), A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene, Part 4, Chapter 3, Quote Page 144, William Heinemann Ltd., London. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1966 December, Esquire, Volume 66, Number 6, Dinner for Three by John Gunther, Start Page 238, Quote Page 341, Column 3, Esquire Inc., Chicago, Illinois. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1969 April 20, Boston Sunday Globe, Section: Globe Sunday Magazine, The Contentions of William Styron, (Interview of William Styron conducted by Robert Taylor), Start Page Quote Page 8, Column 3, Boston, Massachusetts. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1970 July, Harper’s Magazine, Volume 241, Number 1442, Washington, Sex, and Power by John Corry, Start Page 63, Quote Page 63, Column 2, Harper’s Magazine Inc., New York. (ProQuest) ↩︎
- 1970 July 16, The Columbia Daily Tribune, Humor in the Nation’s Capital by Art Buchwald (Syndicated), Quote Page 18, Column 3, Columbia, Missouri. (Newspapers_com) link ↩︎
- 1971 January 19, The New York Times, Foreign Policy: Kissinger at Hub by Hedrick Smith, Start Page A1, Quote Page A2, Column 5, New York. (ProQuest) ↩︎
- 1971 September, Cosmopolitan, Volume 171, Number 3, Washington’s Most-Eligible Bachelors by Marlene Cimons, Quote Page 98, Column 1, New York. (ProQuest) ↩︎
- 1972 February 4, The Minneapolis Star, Washington Letter by Betty Beale, Quote Page 4B, Column 1, Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Newspapers_com) link ↩︎
- 1972 April 7, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Wire: A Special Weekly Report from the Wall Street Journal’s Capital Bureau, Quote Page 1, Column 5, New York. (ProQuest) ↩︎
- 1978, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century by Addison E. Steele (Based on the story and teleplay by Glen A. Larson and Leslie Stevens), Quote Page 226, Dell Publishing Company, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1979 Copyright, Marie Walewska: Napoleon’s Great Love by Christine Sutherland, Chapter 3: The French Are Coming, Quote Page 42, The Vendome Press, New York; Distributed by The Viking Press (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1979, The Book of Quotes, Compiled by Barbara Rowes, Chapter 4: Macho, Quote Page 42, A Sunrise Book: E. P. Dutton, New York. (Verified with hardcopy) ↩︎
- 1979 August 26, Chicago Tribune, Section: Chicago Tribune Magazine, Los Angeles by Michael Coakley, Start Page 15, Quote Page 16, Column 1, Chicago, Illinois. (Newspapers_com) link ↩︎
- 1979 October 20, The Spectator, Polonaise by Fitzroy Maclean (Book review of Christine Sutherland’s “Marie Walewska”), Start Page 23, Quote Page 24, Column 3, Published by the Spectator, London. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1980, In a Flea’s Navel: A Critics Love Affair with Television by Don Freeman, Chapter 4: The Critical Eye, Topic: Hef, Quote Page 89, A. S. Barnes & Company, San Diego. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1999, Random House Webster’s Quotationary, Editor Leonard Roy Frank, Topic: Power, Quote Page 629, Column 2, Random House, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎