Authority Quotes

If I am to constrain you by any law, it must be one by which I am also bound.

Progress in thought is the assertion of individualism against authority.

Dogmatic toleration is nonsense: I would no more tolerate the teaching of Calvinism to children if I had power to persecute it than the British Raj tolerated suttee in India. Every civilized authority must draw a line between the tolerable and the intolerable.

I feel that if Jacques Pepin shows you how to make an omelet, the matter is pretty much settled. That's God talking.

Saruman," I said, standing away from him, "only one hand at a time can weild the One, and you know that well, so do not trouble to say we!

To admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries.

A government at bottom is nothing more than a group of men, and as a practical matter most of them are inferior men. ... Yet these nonentities, by the intellectual laziness of men in general ... are generally obeyed as a matter of duty (and) assumed to have a kind of wisdom that is superior to ordinary wisdom.

What is said of man is nothing; the point is, who says it.

The confidence with which a Sovereign is invested, is solid only when it is sanctioned by the suffrages of the people, who clothed him with the supreme magistracy.

I never expect a soldier to think.

Whoever has an army has power and that war decides everything.

Civil disobedience is a stimulation for the fighters and a challenge to the opponent, in the present instance, authority.

The possession of power inevitably spoils the free use of reason.

O Ceremony, show me but thy worth? What is thy soul of adoration? Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form, Creating awe and fear in other men?

Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar? And the creature run from the cur. There thou mightst behold the great image of authority-a dog's obeyed in office.

Do not be bullied out of your common sense by the specialist; two to one, he is a pedant.

Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial 'we.'

It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.

Let men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.

So you think the police foresees and knows everything. The police invents more than it discovers.

While President, I have been President - emphatically.

All authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and it degrades those over whom it is exercised.

Don't let them fool ya, or even try to school ya! Oh, no! We've got a mind of our own, so go to hell if what you're thinking is not right!

Many people never grow up. They stay all their lives with a passionate need for external authority and guidance, pretending not to trust their own judgment.

Let the force of arms give place to law and justice.

All safe deposit boxes in banks or financial institutions have been sealed... and may only be opened in the presence of an agent of the I.R.S.

Rigorous authority and justice are the kindness of kings.

If people are not afraid of dying, why threaten them with death?

No publisher should ever express an opinion of the value of what he publishes. That is a matter entirely for the literary critic to decide.

All I want is compliance with my wishes, after reasonable discussion.

The insolence of office.

The right of commanding is no longer an advantage transmitted by nature; like an inheritance, it is the fruit of labors, the price of courage.

You assist an administration most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees.

Though under earth, and throneless now I be Yet while I lived all earth was under me.

Power comes from the muzzle of a gun, those that have the guns have the power, those that have the power dictate what type of government their shall be.

It is surely time for men to think for themselves, and to throw off the authority of names so artificially magnified.

Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen.

If your mother tells you to do a thing, it is wrong to reply that you won't. It is better and more becoming to intimate that you will do as she bids you, and then afterwards act quietly in the matter according to the dictates of your better judgment.

The Constitution which at any time exists, 'till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole People is sacredly obligatory upon all.

Whoever can discern truth has received his commission from a higher source than the chiefest justice in the world who can discernonly law. He finds himself constituted judge of the judge. Strange that it should be necessary to state such simple truths!

My desire to devolve authority has nothing to do with a wish to shirk responsibility.

Authority and example lead the world.

The censorship method ... is that of handing the job over to some frail and erring mortal man, and making him omnipotent on the assumption that his official status will make him infallible and omniscient.

Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power.

Why will we be imposed on by antiquity?

It is no easy task to lead men. But it is easy enough to drive them.

But the Night Mother is mother to all! It is her voice we follow! Her will! Would you dare risk disobedience? And surely... punishment?

There is no necessity to separate the monarch from the mob; all authority is equally bad.

The space you occupy and the authority you exercise may be measured with mathematical exactness by the service you render.

You know, if Michael Jordan can scream at the refs, me as Kanye West, as the Michael Jordan of music, can go and say, 'This is wrong.'

To the good warrior soundeth "thou shalt" pleasanter than "I will." And all that is dear unto you, ye shall first have it commanded unto you.

No publisher should ever express an opinion on the value of what he publishes. That is a matter entirely for the literary critic to decide. I can quite understand how any ordinary critic would be strongly prejudiced against a work that was accompanied by a premature and unnecessary panegyric from the publisher. A publisher is simply a useful middle-man. It is not for him to anticipate the verdict of criticism.

My relationship to power and authority is that I'm all for it. People need somebody to watch over them. Ninety-five percent of the people in the world need to be told what to do and how to behave.

I deem no government safe which is under the vassalage of any self-constituted authorities, or any other authority than that of the nation, or its regular functionaries.

Modesty is that feeling by which honorable shame acquires a valuable and lasting authority.

I think it will be found that he who speaks with most authority on a given subject is not ignorant of what has been said by his predecessors. He will take his place in a regular order, and substantially add his own knowledge to the knowledge of previous generations.

A substitute shines brightly as a kingUntil a king be by, and then his stateEmpties itself, as dot an inland brookInto the main of waters.

One precedent in favor of power is stronger than a hundred against it.

I don't mind how much my Ministers talk, so long as they do what I say.

A man made for public life and authority never takes account of personalities; he only takes account of things, of their weight and their conseqences.