Quotes About Authority

Dogma in power does have a unique chilling ingredient not exhibited by power, however ghastly, wielded for its own traditional sake.

the believer claims to know, not just that God exists, but that his most detailed wishes are not merely knowable but actually known. Since religion drew its first breath when the species lived in utter ignorance and considerable fear, I hope I may be forgiven for declining to believe that another human being can tell me what to do, in the most intimate details of my life and mind, and to further dictate these terms as if acting as proxy for a supernatural entity.

There cannot be a censor, or a censorship that does not degenerate into absurdity and corruption, there never has been, and there never will be and of all the excuses for it that there could be, that it protects superstition, and religious fanaticism would be the worst.

What if, I never tire of asking, we said 'Secret Council' instead of the archaic and therefore cuddly 'Privy Council'?

For the party of order, disorder has always had its uses

Revolution from above, in some states and cases, is [...] often preferable to the status quo, or to no revolution at all.

Humans should not worship other humans at all, but if they must do so it is better that the worshipped ones do not occupy any positions of political power.

Sartre distinguished between rebels and revolutionaries. The rebel, he says, secretly quite wants the world and the system to remain as it is. Its permanence, after all, is the guarantee of his continuing ability to rebel. The revolutionary, in contrast, really wishes to overthrow and replace existing conditions. The second enterprise is obviously no laughing matter.

If you don't state a clear preference, then your drink is like a bad game of poker or a hasty drug transaction: It is whatever the dealer says it is. Please do try to bear this in mind.

An ideal scandal is the one that reveals to us what our leaders really think of us; the fools they take us to be and the ease with which they get away with things.

Any fool can lampoon a king or a bishop or a billionaire. A trifle more grit is required to face down a mob, or even a studio audience, that has decided it knows what it wants and is entitled to get it. And the fact that kings and bishops and billionaires often have more say than most in forming the appetites and emotions of the crowd is not irrelevant, either.

Who but a slave thanks his master for what his master has decided to do without bothering to consult him.

Abd al-Aziz bin Baz, the late grand mufti of Saudi Arabia

No creo en la inmortalidad del individuo, y considero que la ética es una preocupación exclusivamente humana que no está respaldada por ninguna autoridad sobrehumana.

Orwell was interested above all not in the rationalizations of the dominant, but in the excuses and whimperings of the submissive.

The people who must never have power are the humorless.

So there are laws that are defensible but unenforceable, and there are laws impossible to infringe. But in the New York of Mayor Bloomberg, there are laws that are not possible to obey, and that nobody can respect, and that are enforced by arbitrary power. The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law. Tyranny can be petty. And "petty" is not just Bloomberg's middle name. It is his name.

Nothing optional—from homo-sexuality to adultery—is ever made punishable unless those who do the prohibiting (and exact the fierce punishments) have a repressed desire to participate. As Shakespeare put it in King Lear, the policeman who lashes the whore has a hot need to use her for the very offense for which he plies the lash.

The will to command and to dominate is one thing, but the will to obey and be prostrate is a deadly foe as well.

It may be that... you recognize something of yourself in these instances... a disposition to resistance... against arbitrary authority or witless mass opinion

No less an authority than Lavrenty Beria attacked the excesses of the Hungarian secret police (which must have stung a bit)

Åžeytanlar? yok ediyorlarsa, polisler melek demektir, öyle deÄŸil mi? Eh, akla yatk?n. Polislerin melek olduÄŸu yer de ancak t?marhane olabilir.

Ima glavu kriminalca!" "A vi mislite da bi ljude sa glavom kriminalca trebalo pustiti da postanu kriminalci?" "Nipošto. Ja vjerujem u disciplinu. Ove bi dje?ake trebalo smještati u radne logore." "A šta ?ete po?eti s njima kada budu tamo? Kažete da se ionako ne mogu promijeniti, pa vjerujem da biste ih zadržali zatvorene do kraja njihovog života?

The people most reluctant to use weapons are the ones who can best be trusted with them.