Quotes About Authority

You cannot have a SeaWing as queen of the RainWings. Tsunami, quit that.

YES I SAID LIGHTNING! COWER BEFORE ME, BORING NORMAL DRAGONS!

WHOSE IDEA WAS IT TO LET YOU HAVE PAPER AND INK?

America is the biggest gang in the world.

I think I'm a natural-born leader. I know how to bow down to authority if it's authority that I respect.

The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false face to rule it. —H. L. Mencken

Great organizations, unlike countries, are never run like a democracy.

this point is critical—no one but the head of an organization can make it healthy.

Rita laughed. "I know. Technically, you're right. But I think a guy at this level needs a little more rope." Rich was adamant now. "No. Less rope. Senior people should get less rope, because in the process of hanging themselves, they snag other people too.

Authority is a solvent of humanity: look at any husband, any father of a family, and note the absorption of the person by the persona, the individual by the role. Then multiply the family, and the authority, by some hundreds and see the effect upon a sea-captain, to say nothing of an absolute monarch. Surely man in general is born to be oppressed or solitary, if he is to be fully human; unless it so happens that he is immune to the poison.

The event caused a certain amount of ribaldry and a fair number of sentences depriving men of their grog for playing the God-damned fool, an offense that came under Article Thirty-six 'All other crimes not capital, committed by any person or persons in the fleet, which are not mentioned in this act, or for which no punishment is hereby directed to be inflicted, shall be punished according to the laws and customs in such cases used at sea,' also known as the captain's cloak or cover-all.

What's wrong with (Captain) Jack Aubrey? Everything, since he has a command and I have not.

Where there was no equality there was no companionship: when a man was obliged to say 'Yes, sir,' his agreement was of no worth even if it happened to be true.

Ah,' said Loder, meaning by this that he regretted the turtle and the geese, that he thought Fox's refusal for his colleagues an abuse of authority, and that he for one dissociated himself from the barbarous incivility: a considerable burden for a single 'ah', but one that it bore easily.

You are a reasonably civil, complaisant creature on dry land,' said Stephen, 'but the moment you are afloat you become pragmatical and absolute, a bashaw - do this, do that, gluppit the prawling strangles, there - no longer a social being at all. It is no doubt the effect of the long-continued habit of command; but it cannot be considered amiable.

The officer chiefly concerned, Mr Pullings, or the Maiden as the Kutaliotes called him because of his mild face and gentle manners, had but to hint that a wall, outhouse, chimney, dovecote might be in the way for it to vanish, plucked down if not by its owners then by his neighbours and the rest of the community.

Or take me,' said Jack. 'I am called captain, but really I am only a master and commander.

Officially the earliest age was eleven for officers' sons and thirteen for the rest, but no one took much notice of the regulation—seven-year-olds were not unknown.) Before

He heard a rushing of feet and a great terrible voice calling 'All hands, all hands ahoy! Out or down! Out or down! Rouse and bitt! Rise and shine! Show a leg there! Out or down! Here I come, with a sharp knife and a clear conscience!

The newly-minted captain is told to let nothing stop him but to do nothing that would risk his ship or his crew.

And from plunder and drunkenness to breaking out entirely and even to mutiny itself is not a terrible long way further. Mutinies always happen in ships where the discipline is either too lax or too severe.

A commander is obeyed by his officers because he is himself obeying; the thing is not in its essence personal; and so down. If he does not obey, the chain weakens. How grave I am, for all love.

A possible explanation may be this: in addition to professional competence, cheerful resignation, an excellent liver, natural authority and a hundred other virtues, there must be the far rarer quality of resisting the effects, the dehumanising effects, of the exercise of authority. Authority is a solvent of humanity: look

plenty of men never rose even to commander; and the commanders were a very respectable body of men. But could a man be entrusted with a line of battle ship if he were liable to take it into his head to fight a fleet engagement according to his own notions of strategy? No, there was not the least likelihood, unless something very extraordinary took place. Captain Aubrey's record was by no means all that could be wished. Lord