Quotes About Authority

After 'Homeland,' I was offered a lot of very authoritarian, square, angry boss types, but I wanted to do something different. Casting directors are surprised when they look at my CV and see all the work I've done, from Shakespeare to playing Nelson Mandela.

The first thing the secretary types is the boss.

Even some of the most jaded D.C. types are still impressed when the leader of the free world enters the room.

In the 1980s, in the communist Eastern Germany, if you owned a typewriter, you had to register it with the government. You had to register a sample sheet of text out of the typewriter. And this was done so the government could track where text was coming from.

My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military.

The typical German coach wants things done one way - his way.

My father wouldn't let me take typing in childhood.

The real damper on employee engagement is the soggy, cold blanket of centralized authority. In most companies, power cascades downwards from the CEO. Not only are employees disenfranchised from most policy decisions, they lack even the power to rebel against egocentric and tyrannical supervisors.

And I think being a good director is being able to be completely tyrannical and you've got to be an absolute dictator while at the same time, you have to listen and see everything because it can all change on a dime.

If the government decides to become a tyrannical government, our guns are to protect us against that.

Corruption is just another form of tyranny.

The checks and balances is a way to prevent government from either devolving into an autocratic tyranny or an autocratic mob mentality.

Tyranny and anarchy are never far apart.

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives.

Where the law ends tyranny begins.

A good deal of tyranny goes by the name of protection.

Tyranny or slavery, born of selfishness, are the two educational methods of parents; all gradations of tyranny or slavery.

Death is softer by far than tyranny.

Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.

When an American government takes on characteristics that elevate the state above the individual, it must be vigorously opposed as a form of, or step toward, tyranny.

There is a secret pride in every human heart that revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you.

The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.

It's the tyranny of an oligarchy that I'm concerned about.