Quotes About Authority

So the cellarer was right: the simple folk always pay for all, even for those who speak in their favor, even for those like Ubertino and Michael, who with their words of penance have driven the simple to rebel!

Quando reina a anarquia, qualquer um pode se fazer rei.

If the pope, the bishops, and the priests were not subject to the worldly and coercive power of the prince, the authority of the prince would be challenged, and thus, with it, an order would be challenged that, as had been demonstrated previously, had been decreed by God.

And 'poor' does not so much mean owning a palace or not; it means, rather, keeping or renouncing the right to legislate on earthly matters.

Pero lo que importa no es si Cristo fue o no pobre, sino si la Iglesia debe o no ser pobre. Y la pobreza no se refiere tanto a la posesión o no de un palacio, como a la conservación o a la pérdida del derecho de legislar sobre las cosas terrenales.

I do not ask much, only Total Power

An unhappy land, then, is one whose citizens no longer know where duty lies, and seek a charismatic leader who tells them what to do. Which, if I remember correctly, is what Hitler promulgated in Mein Kampf.

Când intr? în joc st?pânirea lucrurilor p?mânteÅŸti, e foarte greu ca oamenii s? gândeasc? aÅŸa cum cere dreptatea.

La ilegitimidad es algo de lo que tenemos que hablar en términos de no tenerla»

For what I was to see at the abbey would make me think that it is often inquisitors who create heretics.

Ogni qual volta un politico getta dubbi sulla legittimità del parlamento perché non rappresenta più la voce del popolo, possiamo sentire l'odore di Ur-Fascismo.

We'll pass over that one . . . Anyway, I happen to know from a reliable source that those present at the signing of the contract," and here his voice fell to a whisper, "were Avvocato Riccardi and General Negri di Saint Front." "And who the hell are they?

Why do I feel as if I'm about to hear a sentence passed?' 'Why do you feel as if you should?

And as my eyes grew heavy with sleep I wondered if there were not some larger play still, in which Kings and Emperors and Popes, though thinking they are in the center of the space, are really only in the margin...

The police, and the strikers also, were determined that there should be no violence; but there was another party interested which was minded to the contrary—and that was the press.

Nazis didn't go by looks, they went by instructions. Göring had said: "It is I who decide who is a Jew!

This was the sort of government the American Army wanted in order to win the war quickly, and it was the sort they would want after the war, with no nonsense from reformers and crackpots. The big businessmen were those who got things done; they were the men the big brass dealt with in Washington, and whom they understood and liked.

the fate of dictators to have to listen to flattery and to grow more susceptible to it. There are few who dare to say No in their presence, and it becomes less and less tolerable to them to hear that presumptuous word.

It is the nature of despotism all over the world that no man can trust any other, or be sure of the meaning of any spoken word.

I have to report the painful fact that they have no idea of submitting to a popular verdict if it goes against them; that applies to Spain as to France. If they are forced to it, they will find some man like Mussolini, to hold you down and keep their seat on your backs.

He understood that it is the fate of dictators to have to listen to flattery and to grow more susceptible to it. There are few who dare to say No in their presence, and it becomes less and less tolerable to them to hear that presumptuous word.

The artist is by nature, one might say by definition, an anarchist. He lives in the freedom of his own imagination, and represents the experimental element of life. If "authority" should intervene and tell him what to think or to feel, the experiment would not be tried, the brain-child would be born dead.

The politicians and generals and kings lived in the limelight and enjoyed the glory, while the men of money stayed in the background and gave the orders, politely when possible, but making sure they would be obeyed.

Such was the new technique for the conquest of power. Fool those who were foolable, buy those who were buyable, and kill the rest.