Quotes About Authority

Power is much easier to acquire than it is to hold on to.

Instead of being afraid, I could become something to fear.

Great-hearted Stentor with brazen voice, who could shout as loud as fifty other men.

A widow has two tasks before her, whose duties clash: she is a mother, and yet she must exercise parental authority.

And thus Bureaucracy, the giant power wielded by pygmies, came into the world.

Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.

There's nothing so fearsome as the revolt of a sheep," said de Marsay.

Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can turn it into a fact.

Unluckily, Governments cannot be enlightened, and a Government which regards itself as a diffuser of light is the least open to enlightenment.

Christianity and monarchy are twin principles.

Why did the father of these poor girls, the Comte de Granville, a wise and upright magistrate (though sometimes led away by politics), refrain from protecting the helpless little creatures from such crushing despotism? Alas! by mutual understanding, about ten years after marriage, he and his wife were separated while living under one roof. The father had taken upon himself the education of his sons, leaving that of the daughters to his wife.

Los hombres que están en el Poder tienen tanta necesidad de creer en el mérito reconocido, en el talento descarado, como en el sabio hay puerilidad en creer en las recompensas humanas.

I did not know that bureaucracy could send its claws into our very coffins

What is life, my dear fellow, if you let a woman be the whole of it? A boat you can't command,

He was born to be a senator. He never said anything important, and he always said it sonorously.

When he gets uppity about his supposed learning, I just take it on myself to remind him that God and his angels know almost as much as college professors.

Science, as I have argued, goes against common sense, and we also usually lack the necessary information on which to make a scientific judgement. But more importantly, our belief engine, programmed in our brains by our genes, operates on different principles. It prefers quick decisions, it is bad with numbers, loves representativeness, and sees patterns where often there is only randomness. It is too often influenced by authority, and it has a liking for mysticism.

I try to be a hard boiled sometimes. My kids see right through it. I'm acting. It's always, 'When I say you'll be back at 11, that means 11, not 11.15. Do you hear me!?' Then, 'Yeah, Dad.'

Power brings its own legitimacy.

I believe the test of government is the contentment of the people.

There was nothing wrong with the color. He'd call back the next day and say it was fine. He'd just needed to feel powerful for a few minutes. One of the younger hotshots had just made him feel inferior in a meeting.

I seriously don't understand how men came to rule the world," she'd said to her sister, Bridget, this morning,

Real people don't have the answers. They make mistakes. They say things with great authority and they're wrong.

I can't believe they let us name a person," Nick had said. "It feels like something only the King of the Land should be able to do." "Or the Queen of the Kingdom," Alice said. "Oh, they'd never let a woman name a person," said Nick. "Obviously.