Quotes About Authority

The Librarian has spoken, sally! We Dare Not Disobey!

When I see imposters like … Swinburne, [and] Fleay, who know as much early English as my dog, & who fancy they can settle Chaucer difficulties as they blow their noses, then I ridicule or kick them. But earnest students I treat with respect, & am only too glad to learn from them.

Socialization is not primarily cognitive. We are not persuaded rationally not to pee in the living room; we are required not to. We then rationalize and obey this rule even when no authority figure lurks to enforce it.

He ended his description of them with these menacing words: "I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men and govern them as I pleased.

Thus, we are wise to at least consider orientation to authority as one of several factors—including low intelligence, low education, lack of political sophistication, and external threats of specific kinds (for example, economic threat)—predisposing people to accept fascist ideology.

In the particular study reviewed by Blass that focused on religious dispositional variables, those that scored high on many of the religious variables were more accepting of the commands of an authority than were those who scored lower or were indiscriminately antireligious.

The finding that enduring religious belief systems make us more amenable to the commands of authority also is affirmed by the historical realities surrounding many cases of mass killing and genocide.

In summary, those who have cultural belief systems that see control as external tend to react passively to authoritative orders rather than proceed on the assumption that they can redefine situations through their own actions.

Journalist Philip Gourevitch reports an interview with a Rwandan lawyer who said: "Conformity is very deep, very developed here. In Rwandan history, everyone obeys authority. People revere power, and there isn't enough education. You take a poor, ignorant population, and give them arms, and say, 'It's yours. Kill.' They'll obey.

He who thinks he is leading and has no one following him is only taking a walk. ~ Malawian Proverb

Break the character and independence of your man and you will have an obedient trooper.

I would not have shied away from an assignment to sail a canoe around Cape Horn or to take charge of the government of Afghanistan.

We find that a high plane of sustained horror is often convenient for reasons of state. — Inspector Kraus (Gestapo)

Oh! Do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.

I leave it to be settled, by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.

She was without any power, because she was without any desire of command over herself.

As a brother, a landlord, a master, she considered how many people's happiness were in his guardianship! -- How much of pleasure or pain it was in his power to bestow! -- How much of good or evil must be done by him!

Consideration and Esteem surely follow command of Language as Admiration waits on Beauty

A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.

You are very fond of bending little minds; but where little minds belong to rich people in authority, I think they have a knack of swelling out, till they are quite as unmanageable as great ones.

Elizabeth found that nothing was beneath this great lady's attention, which could furnish her with an occasion of dictating to others.

From politics, it was an easy step to silence

Married women, you know, may be safely authorised. It is my party. Leave it all to me. I will invite your guests. No, he calmly replied, there is but one married woman in the world whom I can ever allow to invite what guests she pleases to Donwell, and that one is- Mrs. Weston, I suppose, interrupted Mrs. Elton, rather mortified. No, Mrs. Knightley; and, till she is in being, I will manage such matters myself.

Her word had no weight; her convenience was always to give way.