Quotes About Authority

When we allow our children to become independent decision makers we give them a false idea of liberty and a mistaken notion about freedom. 

I obeyed, but my crime was that I did not look obedient.

After four centuries of Spanish rule, Puerto Rico was ceded to the United States in 1898. Residents were granted U.S. citizenship in 1917, and the federal government has allowed Puerto Rico to exercise authority over its local affairs in a manner similar to the 50 states.

I know propaganda when I see it, and I can speak with authority on it.

I just don't like big guys who speak cryptically and act like they understand the language better than me.

I believed in God when cancer come to me. Now when I speak, I speak with authority because I've been there.

I've always been very passionate about issues. Being speaker, you kind of have to park the positions on issues and focus more on the rules.

If you asked me if I'd rather be Speaker or a very senior minister, I'd say Speaker.

You have to make some hard decisions when you're speaker.

Legally speaking, there are no such things as 'public rights,' as distinguished from individual rights. Legally speaking, there is no such creature or thing as 'the public.'

Namely, we have no right to believe a thing true because everybody says so unless there are good grounds for believing that some one person at least has the means of knowing what is true, and is speaking the truth so far as he knows it.

Being an author is always like being a well-run dictatorship - it's all one person speaking.

The voice of authority speaks not for the one but for the many; authority figures have a strong and rapid effect on social norms in part because they change our assumptions about what other people think.

The Cabinet makes collective decision and when the Cabinet speaks it speaks with one voice.

To be censored is one sure way of knowing you have been taken dead seriously. It also speaks to the continuing power of the printed word, almost fifteen hundred years after that amazing invention.

Anyone who speaks in the name of others is always an imposter.

The difference between me and most Protestants is most Protestants have no problem at all saying 'The Lord told me this' or 'The Lord told me that,' but they won't believe that the Lord speaks through the pope. You know, at least this guy has some credentials.

The trouble with ghostwriting is that it raises the issue of whether the president is in a state of diminished responsibility for what he says. Does he actually grasp the implications of the words he speaks?

No one really speaks for the president other than the president.

You can't tell an 18-year-old to keep it down and turn off Britney Spears or whatever it is that they listen to.

I don't mind being 65, but nobody is gonna tell me to come in at 5:30 to have the early bird special.

But I recognize no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an individual, I have no absolute faith in any person.

Of all presidential perks, the pardon power has a special significance. It is just the kind of authority that would attract the special attention of someone obsessed with himself and his own ability to influence events.

Being in the gaffer's seat is very special.