Quotes About Authority

Hua could not repudiate the Cultural Revolution, and this weakened him. He was also a comparative newcomer to the centers of power, and he lacked the web of connections and informal relations that Deng had built up over many years.

The powerful and the rest of society will often disagree about which set of institutions should remain in place and which ones should be changed.

Unlike Iturbide, Santa Ana, and Díaz, however, none of these military men used force to get into power. Nor did they use force to avoid having to relinquish power. They abided by the Constitution.

La política es el proceso mediante el cual una sociedad elige las reglas que la gobernarán

I've never met a politician who didn't deserve to be tossed into a pit full of Kallin, Beranabus grunts.

I'd always been stubborn. I admired Mr. Crepsley more than he knew, but hated the idea of looking like a pushover who did everything he was told. Sometimes I disobeyed the vampire just so he wouldn't think I was paying attention to what he said!

Be still while I get up or I'll make an opening in your head for brains to leak in.

The man whose name I had not caught was saying: "Comes the revolution and we'll all be lined up against the wall—first thing." He seemed to think it was a good idea.

He was the perfect soldier: he went where you sent him, and stayed where you put him, and had no idea of his own to keep him from doing exactly what you told him.

Today, the latitude and longitude lines govern with more authority than I could have imagined forty-odd years ago, for they stay fixed as the world changes it's configuration underneath them—with continents adrift across a widening sea, the national boundaries repeatedly redrawn by war or peace.

Nobody understands how hard it is, being a captain.

Our chief marketable skill, coming out of college, is the ability to write authoritatively about things we don't necessarily understand.

They looked plainly scared, except for one, a wiry boy with bright orange hair—not the largest of the lot, but the one who seemed to be in charge. He had an air about him, Alf thought, the look of a boy who doesn't miss much.

If a Greek woman tells you to do something, you do it.

You're mine, Wasp

Nobody understands how hard it is, being captain.

Now, you and I both know that if you can control the flow of information, you can control everything.

Maybe if he was the sort of man who could eat someone else's hash browns, who the hotel wanted to impress so much they sent him someone else's breakfast, maybe then he was the sort of man who could get an audience with the King.

something about how all this could or would lead to totalitarianism. Her stomach sank.

don't presume the benevolence of your leaders.

Now, you and I both know that if you can control the flow of information, you can control everything. You can control most of what anyone sees and knows. If you want to bury some piece of information, permanently, that's two seconds' work. If you want to ruin anyone, that's five minutes' work.

The only explanation was that she was receiving instructions from extraplanetary overlords.

Ty swept his arms around, encompassing everything around them, the vast campus above. "All this. The fucking shark that eats the world.

That's what's new. There used to be the option of opting out. But now that's over. Completion is the end. We're closing the circle around everyone—it's a totalitarian nightmare.