Quotes About Authority

Chari gave him a lofty look. "You really don't know? I've always wondered how it was that men in the rest of the world are in charge, when they're so perpetually thick." He snorted softly. "And I'm curious to know how Traitor women stay in charge when they're just as inclined to communicate by indirect hints and innuendo as women everywhere else.

To be master or servant within an hour, this is the course of temporal power.

You ever met one of those guys who, in a totally calm and composed way, can scare the shit out of you? Like an MMA fighter, or the fat Kardashian sister who married Lamar Odom?

Your fancy book learnin' should've thaught you that the strong do what they want and the weak endure what they must. Now bring me your finest meats and cheeses and be quick about it!

Kings cannot ennoble thee, thou good, great soul, for One who is higher than kings hath done that for thee; but a king can confirm thy nobility to men.

Social systems proceed by (usually) covering up the brutalities upon which they are based. The doctor doesn't let you get to his door and then turn you away, rather his home address is hard to find. The government handcuffs you so they don't have to shoot you trying to escape. And so on.

It's so easy for people that aren't there to say, 'I wouldn't have done that,' " Francona says. "Well, you know what? You didn't earn the right to make that decision. He did.

SIR:—Yours of this date, proposing armistice and appointment of Commissioners to settle terms of capitulation, is just received. No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works. I am, sir, very respectfully, Your ob't se'v't, U. S. GRANT, Brig. Gen. To this I received the following reply: HEADQUARTERS, DOVER, TENNESSEE, February 16, 1862.

Mr. Stanton never questioned his own authority to command, unless resisted. He cared nothing for the feeling of others. In fact it seemed to be pleasanter to him to disappoint than to gratify.

The conspiracy theory of society . . . comes from abandoning God and then asking: "Who is in his place?" —Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, London, Routledge

Sólo el bibliotecario, además de saber, está autorizado a moverse por el laberinto de los libros, sólo él sabe dónde encontrarlos y dónde guardarlos, sólo él es responsable de su conservación...

Because if the Masters of the World exist, they can only be underground: this is a truth that all sense but few dare utter. Perhaps

There are words that give power, others that make us all the more derelict

the more things you know, or pretend to know, the more powerful you are. It doesn't matter if things are true. What counts, remember, is to possess a secret.

Ca s? slujeÅŸti cu competen?? legea se cere s-o fi înc?lcat.

El ingenuo dominico dice que también él ha pedido el permiso y se lo han negado. «Pero tú, ¿cómo lo has pedido?», le pregunta el jesuita. Y el dominico: «¿Puedo fumar mientras rezo?». Era obvio que le contestaran que no. En cambio, el jesuita preguntó «¿Puedo rezar mientras fumo?», y los superiores le dijeron que se podía rezar en cualquier circunstancia.

el mundo se ha convertido en un asunto demasiado complicado para dejar que sea gobernado por quienes lo gobernaban antes.

don't trust renewals of the human race when curias and courts speak of them.

I believe that when too many people gather together, lured by a promise and immediately demanding something, there is never any knowing who among them speaks.

And Adelmo that day quoted another lofty authority, the doctor of Aquino, when he said that divine things should be expounded more properly in figures of vile bodies than of noble bodies.

Duro oficio el del inquisidor, tiene que golpear a los más débiles, y cuando mayor es su debilidad.

To the anonymous divinity of Technological Communication our answer could be: "Not Thy, but our will be done.

Elie Wiesel used to say that those who believed that all things are permitted were not those who believed that God was dead, but those who thought they were God (a shortcoming common to dictators great and small).

No sin cierto remordimiento, me sentía como un Stalin que ríe entre dientes mientras piensa: «Haced, haced, pobres bolcheviques, que yo sigo estudiando en el seminario de Tiflis y después del plan quinquenal me encargo yo.»