Quotes About Authority

You can rule by fear but it's not a great motivation for people.

As I got older, I was able to articulate why I was rebelling against authority - because their motives were much more forceful and hurtful than I had ever thought.

The promotion of self-esteem in our schools has been so successful that people feel free to spout off about all sorts of things — and see no reason why their opinions should not be taken as seriously as the views of people who actually know what they are talking about.

According to an official document of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, right-wing extremists include "groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration." It also includes those "rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority.

Malcolm X and Edmund Burke shared an appreciation of this important insight, this painful truth--that the state wants men to be weak and timid, not strong and proud.

The maliciousness of psychiatry is that it promotes itself as a medical discipline, although it is actually only part of the state authority.24 Therein

It is mainly by resisting authority that the individual defines himself. This is why authorities--whether parental, priestly, political, or psychiatric--must be careful how and where they assert themselves; for while it is true that the more they assert themselves the more they govern, it is also true that the more they assert themselves the more opportunities they offer for being successfully denied.

In the history of the twentieth century, the principal dramatis personae were National and International Socialisms, better known as Nazism and Communism. Their citizens evaded the duty of self-responsibility by claiming to be following orders. Following orders -attributed to or issued by God, the State, Science, Medicine-is always the easy way out. Refusing to do so requires self-reliance and resisting temptations and threats.

Psikiyatrda [aliénist] olduÄŸu gibi rahipte de, her zaman sorgu yarg?c?ndan bir ÅŸeyler vard?r. –Marcel Proust (1871-1922)

because women were also believed to be closer to the raw forces of nature than were males, controlling their power was, for the adult male, part of the larger project of creating human civilization itself.

Le citoyen doit-il un seul instant, dans quelque mesure que ce soit, abandonner sa conscience au législateur ? (LA DÉSOBÉISSANCE CIVILE)

when these matters are discussed by practical people, the standard of justice depends on the equality of power to compel...

You know well as I do that when we are talking on the human plane, questions of justice only arise when there is equal power to compel: in terms of practicality the dominant exact what they can and the weak concede what they must. (Said by Athenian envoy to the Melians)

for it has always been law that the weaker should be subject to the stronger.

este evident ca atat omul, cat si Zeii, oriunde dispun de putere si-o exercita dintr-un invincibil impuls al firii. si voi, ca toti ceilalti, ati actiona exact ca noi, daca ati avea o putere egala cu a noastra.

Until the sixteenth century, men—priests, academics, judges, merchants, princes, and many others—wore skirts, or robes. For men, the skirt was a 'sign of leisure and a symbol of dignity,' writes Quentin Bell. This is still true for men in high positions. After all, can you imagine the Pope, or Professor Dumbledore, wearing trousers? Have you ever seen a depiction of God wearing pants?

If managers tend to have a bad reputation, what should we make of the people who tell managers how to manage?

It's my job to run the division, and it's your job to critique me.' Petraeus

CEASE FIRE,' Captain Johansen shouted. 'Cease fire, what's wrong with you guys? Stop wasting the goddamn ammo. CEASE FIRE!' Cease fire,' the lieutenants hollered. Cease fire,' the platoon sergeants hollered. Cease the goddamn fire,' shouted the squad leaders. That,' I told Barney, 'is the chain of command.

After all, there's no shape or image in modern culture to match that of the gun. Nothing else has its universal authority or saving promise

The gun's slinky power has a special appeal to the young, the weak, the confused and the powerless. To those overlooked or spurned, access to a firearm is the spark of agency. With a gun in your hands, everything is possible. In a moment you imagine the respect it demands.

When you're a member of the privileged group, you don't take kindly to someone telling you that you can't do something

But to argue, like Filmer, Tribe, Sunstein, and Bork, that government comes first, and that it gives people freedom when it wills, and for its own purposes, is, as Locke concluded, the same as saying "that no man is born free.

A mere look, word, or motion,—a mistake, accident, or want of power,—are all matters for which the slave may be whipped at any time," wrote Douglass