Quotes About Authority

you can control a slave much better by convincing him he is an employee.

You argue with her to no avail (she is supposed to be the "expert").

I have always hated employment and the associated dependence on someone else's arbitrary opinion, particularly when much of what's done inside large corporations violates my sense of ethics.

It is also naïve empiricism to provide, in support of some argument, series of eloquent confirmatory quotes by dead authorities. By searching, you can always find someone who made a well-sounding statement that confirms your point of view—and, on every topic, it is possible to find another dead thinker who said the exact opposite. Almost all of my non–Yogi Berra quotes are from people I disagree with.

My biggest problem with the educational system lies precisely in that it forces students to squeeze explanations out of subject matters and shames them for withholding judgment, for uttering the "I don't know.

It has been difficult for people to understand that, historically, skepticism has been mostly skepticism of expert knowledge rather than skepticism about abstract entities like God, and that all the great skeptics have been largely either religious or, at least, pro-religion (that is, in favour of others being religious).

Stálin não poderia ter existido em um município".

Stalin could not have existed in a municipality.

We are largely collaborative—except when institutions get in the way.

Another case where economists may inspire us but should never tell us what to do

Political parties are hierarchical, they are designed in a way to substitute someone's own decision making with a well-defined protocol.

Socrates was put to death because he disrupted something that, in the eyes of the Athenian establishment, was working just fine.

We saw with the minority rule that the intolerant will run over the tolerant;

They are left alone to do as they please, provided of course that their results satisfy the executives.

Administrators everywhere on the planet, in all businesses and pursuits, and at all times in history, have been the plague.

Birds fly and those who lecture them are the ones who write their story. So it is easy to see that history is truly written by losers with time on their hands and a protected academic position.

the further from headquarters an employee is located, the more autonomous his unit, the more you want him to be a slave so he does nothing strange on his own.

how professionals can cause harm for such a long time in the name of knowledge and get away with it.

No tienes autoridad!», le gritaba mi padre despertándola por la noche. Pero por otro lado, él también demostró no tenerla, porque Paola continuó paseando durante años con aquel joven bajito, y lo dejó cuando la cosa se apagó sola, poco a poco, como se apaga la luz de una vela.

If my mother were a bumper sticker, she would read THAT'S NOT APPROPRIATE. Taylor's mom would read WHY THE F*** NOT?

The obedient student was taught not to challenge authority. The responsible student is prepared to question—and if need be, to challenge—anything.

Children need limits and feel anxious in their absence. This is one of the reasons they test limits—to be certain they are there. They need to know that someone is flying the plane.

Some people stand and move as if they have no right to the space they occupy.

A dead man sits on all our judgment seats; and living judges do but search out and repeat his decisions. We read in dead men's books! We laugh a dead men's jokes, and cry at dead men's pathos!