"Power through others is a chancy thing, but it is effective. Do you think most kings go to war by their lonesomes? Do they know spells none can resist? Some do, but most are rather ordinary... yet with a snap of their fingers, they can command a city razed and the earth salted by the army. A court wizard might as well be a wand the King points even if the king himself knows but one spell? People are not things, of course, but real power is often not what you know, but who serves you. What's more powerful? A man who learns 3 spells, or a spelless man with a harem of three, and each of those women knowing three spells they will use when he asks?"