Quotes About Authority

Whenever somebody turned his head, he shouted, Stop looking behind you!: There was a strict rule against head turns. When reversing, you were supposed to rely on mirrors only; the blind spot didn't exist, at least not in Coach Tang's eyes. Nobody ever wore a seat belt. I never saw a turn signal flash on the parking range at the Public Safety Driving School.

It is the Godfather, not God the Father, who makes you an offer you can't refuse.

The difference between a counsel and a commandment is that a commandment implies obligation, whereas a counsel is left to the option of the one to whom it is given.

The ancient Greeks named about five hundred gods, the Romans five thousand, the Tibetan Buddhists nine million, but Americans are the most polytheistic people in history: they have named 330 million gods. That is the root of our insanity. We demand to be our own authorities because we demand to be the authors of our own being and meaning

Even if it were within her legal right and authority, it would harm more than help. It might be argued that it is like capital punishment today: the state has the right to use it if necessary, but since it is no longer necessary, it would do more public harm than good in the current war against the culture of death.

to dispense from the laws.

when a subject corrects his prelate, he ought to do so in a becoming manner, not with impudence and harshness but with gentleness and respect. . . .

The root of pride is found to consist in man not being in some way subject to God and His rule.

the way in which He worked miracles, namely because He worked miracles . . . of His own power, and not by praying (petitioning), as others do. .

democracy is probably intrinsically the best form of government, not because all men are equal in wisdom and virtue, or because all men are so good and wise that they should be given as much power as possible, but because all men are so foolish and wicked that no one should be given very great power over others.

Reason is His voice, His interior prophet, in our souls. We call that prophet conscience. (St. Thomas used two terms for it: "synderesis" was the awareness of its reality and truth and authority and rules, and "conscience" was the application of it. We use "conscience" for both.) Conscience is essentially the power of reason to know good and evil.

all power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely").

The head of the Massa," I said, "is my mom.

It's when you've decided to invest on your own that you ought to try going it alone. That means ignoring the hot tips, the recommendations from brokerage houses, and the latest "can't miss" suggestion from your favorite newsletter—in favor of your own research. It means ignoring the stocks that you hear Peter Lynch, or some similar authority, is buying.

It's hard knowing what to allow and what not to. It's hard to know how much discipline to apply. If you don't give enough, then the child runs wild, and the parents get the blame. If you keep too strict control, he doesn't develop naturally and he blames you for screwing him up.

He watched Clint Eastwood for a while. He had never much enjoyed cop films or cop programs on television, but watching right here and now, he could identify with Dirty Harry tracking down the villains and dealing with them his own way. He had meant what he said to Blackstone. A few minutes alone with Pamela Jeffreys's attackers and they would know what police brutality was all about.

Compulsory purchase order. March 13th, 2017.

Machiavelli declared that it was better to be feared than loved as a leader, but you did not want to be hated. Hatred led to conspiracy. And conspiracy, he warned, could bring down governments.

In Washington, it is far more important to be feared than loved.

But the problem is not just with accumulated power, but also with those who seek it. As scientist and author David Brin pointedly noted, "It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible.

Laws and a settled decision procedure to generate them are a good thing. This gives us one important reason for obeying the law. By obeying the law, I can contribute to the respect in which the established decision procedure and the laws are held. By disobeying, I set an example to others that may lead them to disobey too.

Barbara Tuchman wrote, "Reasonable orders are easy enough to obey; it is capricious, bureaucratic or plain idiotic demands that form the habit of discipline.

dial back my ego and distribute power as widely as possible without surrendering final authority. Paradoxically, this approach strengthened my effectiveness because it freed me to focus on my job as keeper of the team's vision.

After years of experimenting, I discovered that the more I tried to exert power directly, the less powerful I became.