Quotes About Authority

Beat and cuff the slave, keep him hungry and spiritless, and he will follow the chain of his master like a dog," but "give him a good master, and he wishes to become his own master."1

The mistake is to assume that rulers who came to power through institutions cannot change or destroy those very institutions—even when that is exactly what they have announced that they will do.

10 Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.

Once truth had become oracular rather than factual, evidence was irrelevant.

A common American error is to believe that freedom is the absence of state authority.

But without the conformists, the great atrocities would have been impossible.

If you carry a weapon in public service, may God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no.

Tyrants seek the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have hooks.

Other forces were at work besides conformism. But without the conformists, the great atrocities would have been impossible.

To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.

It was easier to triumph in violence that it was to make a new order.

He places the sign in his window so that he can withdraw into daily life without trouble from the authorities. When everyone else follows the same logic, the public sphere is covered with signs of loyalty, and resistance becomes unthinkable.

People who assure you that you can only gain security at the price of liberty usually want to deny you both. You

The leader who dislikes the investigators is a potential tyrant.

For tyrants, the lesson of the Reichstag fire is that one moment of shock enables an eternity of submission. For

Frank claimed that law was meant to serve the race, and so what seemed good for the race was therefore the law. With arguments like this, German lawyers could convince themselves that laws and rules were there to serve their projects of conquest and destruction, rather than to hinder them.

Anticipatory obedience is a political tragedy

James Madison nicely made the point that tyranny arises "on some favorable emergency.

At the very beginning, anticipatory obedience means adapting instinctively, without reflecting, to a new situation.

When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.

For tyrants, the lesson of the Reichstag fire is that one moment of shock enables an eternity of submission.

The SS began as an organization outside the law, became an organization that transcended the law, and ended up as an organization that undid the law. Because

where annual elections end, tyranny begins.

To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle.