Quotes About Authority

justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger.

let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its law.

I grow impatient at the length of your exordium.

So when the orator is more convincing than the doctor, what happens is that an ignorant person is more convincing than the expert before an equally ignorant audience.

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

Then, I said, no science or art considers or enjoins the interest of the stronger or superior, but only the interest of the subject and weaker?

The wisest have the most authority

First, I think that if our rulers and their auxiliaries are to be worthy of the name which they bear, there must be willingness to obey in the one and the power of command in the other; the guardians must themselves obey the laws, and they must also imitate the spirit of them in any details which are entrusted to their care. That is right, he said. You

That the makers of laws are the majority who are weak; and they make laws and distribute praises and censures with a view to themselves and to their own interests.

The ruler who is good for anything ought not to beg his subjects to be ruled by him, although the present governors of mankind are of a different stamp.

whether in battle or in a court of law, or in any other place, he must do what his city and his country order him; or he must change their view of what is just:

And this is proved by the fact that when he obtains the power, he immediately becomes unjust as far as he can be.

What do you mean? he asked. Beginning with the State, I replied, would you say that a city which is governed by a tyrant is free or enslaved? No city, he said, can be more completely enslaved. And

the rulers make laws for their own interests. But

Es razonable, entonces, que la tiranía no se establezca a partir de otro régimen político que la democracia, y que sea a partir de la libertad extrema que surja la mayor y más salvaje esclavitud

They are always either the masters or servants and never the friends of anybody; the tyrant never tastes of true freedom or friendship.

a los dioses y nobles monarcas persuaden los dones

the true ruler is not meant by nature to regard his own interest, but that of his subjects

Mas la verdad es, creo yo, lo siguiente: la ciu­dad en que estén menos ansiosos por ser gobernantes quienes hayan de serlo, ésa ha de ser forzosamente la que viva mejor y con menos disensiones que ninguna; y la que tenga otra clase de gobernantes, de modo distinto.

Do not expect justice where might is right.

the Thirty sent for me" says Socrates ". . .and ordered [me] to bring Leon the Salaminian to be put to death. . .I, however, showed again, by action, not in word only, that I did not care a whit for death. . .but that I did care with all my might not to do anything unjust or unholy… For that government, with all its power, did not frighten me into doing anything unjust…I simply went home.

might is still right, but the might is the weakness of the many combined against the strength of the few.

Knowledge, do you say it is power? yes most mighty of all powers.

Or do you think it possible for a city not to be destroyed if the verdicts of its courts have no force but are nullified and set at naught by private individuals?