Authority Quotes

I don't like to think of laws as rules you have to follow, but more as suggestions.

Rules were made for fools to follow and wise men to be guided by.

The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all. Authority over him and his art is ridiculous.

Merciful heaven, Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt Splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak Than the soft myrtle; but man, proud man, Dressed in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he's most assured His glassy essence--like an angry ape Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As makes the angels weep; who, with our spleens, would all themselves laugh mortal.

Do you remember the tsar? Well, I‘m like a tsar.

Headmasters have powers at their disposal with which Prime ministers have never yet been invested.

All rulers in all ages have tried to impose a false view of the world upon their followers.

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

Kill the king but spare the man.

Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? In heaven's name,Catiline, how long will you abuse ourpatience?

Master and Doctor are my titles; for ten years now, without repose, I held my erudite recitals and led my pupils by the nose.

Wherever there is power there is age.

The art of subversion, of revolution, is to dislodge established customs by probing down to their origins in order to show how they lack authority and justice.

The Governor was strong uponThe Regulation Act:The Doctor said that Death was butA scientific fact:And twice a day the Chaplain called,And left a little tract.

When I've heard all I need to make a decision, I don't take a vote. I make a decision.

A constitution, therefore, is to a government what the laws made afterwards by that government are to a court of judicature. The court of judicature does not make the laws, neither can it alter them; it only acts in conformity to the laws made: and the government is in like manner governed by the constitution.

The art of revolutionizing and overturning states is to undermine established customs, by going back to their origin, in order to mark their want of justice.

In a conquered country benevolence is not humanitarianism. It is a general political axiom that a conqueror must not inspire a good opinion of his benevolence until he has demonstrated that he can be severe with malefactors.

Quacks are a part of our culture, and we all fall prey to them. Who among us can say, for sure, that even our own personal physicians are honest and competent?

If you will be guided by me, you will make little account of Socrates, and much more of truth.

You shall more command with years than with your weapons.

A judge who cannot punish, in the end associates themselves with the criminal.

He who in reasoning cites authority is making use of his memory rather than of his intellect.

If I didn't have my parents to think about I'd have given in my notice a long time ago, I'd have gone up to the boss and told him just what I think, tell him everything I would, let him know just what I feel. He'd fall right off his desk! And it's a funny sort of business to be sitting up there at your desk, talking down at your subordinates from up there, especially when you have to go right up close because the boss is hard of hearing.

The only people who should use the possessive 'we' are kings, newspaper editors, and persons with tapeworms.

The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best.

To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself.

I'll tell you," said Beatty, smiling at his cards. "That made you for a little while a drunkard. Read a few lines and off you go over the cliff. Bang, you're ready to blow up the world, chop off heads, knock down women and children, destroy authority. I know. I've been through it all.

I dread specialists in power because they are specialists speaking outside of their special subject.

I will make a Star-chamber matter of it.

The authority of reason is far more imperious than that of a master; for he who disobeys the one is unhappy, but he who disobeys the other is a fool.

A great reserve and severity of manners are necessary for the command of those who are older than ourselves.

On pain of death, no person be so bold.

A constitution should be framed so as not to impede the action of government, nor force the government to its violation.

The wise fools who sit in the high places of justice fail to see that in revolutionary times vital issues are settled not by statutes, decrees and authorities, but in spite if them.

The unstable estimates of men crowd to him whose mind is filled with a truth, as the heaped waves of the Atlantic follow the moon.

My pride had been starched by a family who assumed unlimited authority in its own affairs.

All dese governments and dis this and that, these people that say they're here to help, why them say you cannot smoke the herb? Herb... herb is a plant, you know? And when me check it, me can't find no reason. All them say is, 'it make you rebel'. Against what?

Posthumous men-myself, for example-are not as well understood as timely ones, but we are listened to better. More precisely: we are never understood-hence our authority.

If you demand my authorities for this and that, I must reply that only those who have never hunted up the authorities as I have believe that there is any authority who is not contradicted flatly by some other authority.

Do you ever read any of the books you burn?" He laughed. "That's against the law!" "Oh. Of course.

Be obedient to your superior, and your inferior will obey you.

Your heart and your mouth wil be in two separate parts of your body if you again forget in whose presence you stand.

[In school] I encountered authority of a different kind than I had ever encountered before, and I did not like it. And they really almost got me. They came close to really beating any curiosity out of me.

If I deny the authority of the State when it presents my tax bill, it will soon take and waste all my property, and so harass me and my children without end. This is hard, this makes it impossible for a man to live honestly, and at the same time comfortably, in outward respects.

Science should be on tap, not on top.

I don't want you folks to do a lot of talking. Just shut up and get out of the way.

People like me sound like a lot of big cannons.

Authority is never without hate.

When people do not dread authorities, then a greater dread descends.

Shall remain! Hear you this Triton of the minnows? Mark you His absolute 'shall'?

Influence is not government.

For as the law is set over the magistrate, even so are the magistrates set over the people. And therefore, it may be truly said, "that the magistrate is a speaking law, and the law is a silent magistrate.

Everything they told me as a kid has already been disproved by the same type of “experts” who made them up in the first place.

I never joined the Boy Scouts. I don't trust any organization that has a handbook.

Be the chief but never the lord.

I'm not a person who likes authority. I just love the fact that it's up to me, and I go straight to the audience.

[A ruler is merely] the trustee of the rights of other men and he must always stand in dread of having in some way violated these rights.

[Management] has authority only as long as it performs.

There is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.