#Authority Quotes

“When Caesar says, 'Do this', it is performed.”

“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.”

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

“Give obedience where 'tis truly owed.”

“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?”

“Go, bid the soldiers shoot.”

“The king's name is a tower of strength.”

“We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape till custom make it Their perch, and not their terror.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Man, proud man, drest in a little brief authority, most ignorant of what he's most assur d, glassy essence, like an angry ape, plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, as make the angels weep.”

“Well, I must be patient; there is no fettering of authority.”

“We were not born to sue, but to command.”

“And I will make it felony to drink small beer.”

“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.”

“There's such divinity doth hedge a kingThat treason can but peep to what it would.”

“Wherever there is power there is age.”

“When a natural king becomes a titular king, every body is pleased and satisfied.”

“I will make a Star-chamber matter of it.”

“Science should be on tap, not on top.”

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

“The insolence of office.”

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

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“I'm convinced that what kids need today are parents - not buddies. They need someone who will exercise mature judgment.”

“To you your father should be as a god.”

“Nice customs curtsy to great kings.”

“On pain of death, no person be so bold.”

“Elderly people and those in authority cannot always be relied upon to take enlightened and comprehending views of what they call the indiscretions of youth.”

“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.”

“Science as such assuredly has no authority, for she can only say what is, not what is not.”

“And, in general, that branch which is to act ultimately and without appeal on any law is the rightful expositor of the validity of the law, uncontrolled by the opinions of the other coordinate authorities.”

“You shall more command with years than with your weapons.”

“No art can conquer the people alone-the people are conquered by an ideal of life upheld by authority.”

“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.”

“Once the people begin to reason, all is lost”

“I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two hundred rats of my own species.”

“If you want to know who controls you, look at who you are not allowed to criticize.”

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

“I think I'm a natural-born leader. I know how to bow down to authority if it's authority that I respect.”

“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.”

“Governments arise either out of the people or over the people.”

“No leader, however great, can long continue unless he wins battles. The battle decides all.”

“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.”

“I put a Phrygian cap on the old dictionary.”

“We must have kings, we must have nobles; nature is always providing such in every society; only let us have the real instead of the titular. In every society some are born to rule, and some to advise. The chief is the chief all the world over, only not his cap and plume. It is only this dislike of the pretender which makes men sometimes unjust to the true and finished man.”

“Kill the king but spare the man.”