Quotes About Authority

In republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing.

No state, no government exists. What does in fact exist is a man, or a few men, in power over many men.

After a time, civil servants tend to become no longer servants and no longer civil.

Treason doth never prosper. What's the reason? Why, when it prospers, none dare call it treason.

Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.

The President is always abused. If he isn't, he isn't doing anything.

One blames politicians, not for inconsistency but for obstinacy. They are the interpreters, not the masters, of our fate. It is their job, in fact, to register the fact accompli.

Since governments take the right of death over their people, it is not astonishing if the people should sometimes take the right of death over governments.

It is an axiom, enforced by all the experience of the ages, that they who rule industrially will rule politically.

You suffer from the oldest delusion in politics. You think you can change the world by talking to a leader. Leaders are the effects, not the causes of changes.

Those that deem politics beneath their dignity are doomed to be governed by those of lesser talents.

Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.

Blood is thicker than water, but politics are thicker than blood.

Under every stone lurks a politician.

Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.

Who watches the watchmen?

Laws cannot be imposed on him who is the master of the law.

Authority doesn't work without prestige, or prestige without distance.

What we call 'morals' is simply blind obedience to words of command.

Following rulers instead of prophets, the wicked can rule you, but the knowledge can stop it.

Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men most.

There will never be a really free and enlightened state until the state comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived.

I'm a statistic in a system that a civil servant dominates.

Political action means taking on responsibility. This cannot happen without power. Power is to serve responsibility.