Quotes About Authority

Nature has left this tincture in the blood, That all men would be tyrants if they could.

The whole point of having heroes is you can look up to people who can get away with whatever they want. Because like you said, they've always had the courage to do whatever they want. Right?

I was exactly like the various White House officials who testified later during the Watergate hearings that they had believed—in the words of their boss, President Nixon—that "when the president does it, it is not illegal.

In the limit, every flight commander, if not every pilot with a weapon aboard, would feel authorized, under some circumstances, to initiate nuclear war with the Communist bloc.

in the summer of 1964, coincided with the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which became the basis for a congressional resolution that gave Lyndon Johnson almost unlimited authority to pursue the Vietnam War. Ellsberg establishes that the incident was not the military attack on an American ship that Congress thought it was, and that the administration was cooking up evidence to justify a course of action it had already decided upon.

without President Kennedy's knowledge, and, brandishing the might of the United States

This is precisely the explanation given to the president in Dr. Strangelove for his lack of ability to send a Stop order to the planes that have been launched by the mad base commander General Jack D. Ripper.

The major in charge of this little collection of Quonset huts and planes in the hills controlled six and a half times World War II's worth of firepower.

I asked, "How do you think that would work?" The major said, "If they didn't get any Execute message? Oh, I think they'd come back." Pause. "Most of them." The last three words didn't register with me right away because before they were out of his mouth, my head was exploding. I kept my face blank but a voice inside was screaming, "Think? You think they'd come back?!

human beings come into the world with a passion for control, they go out of the world the same way

human beings come into the world with a passion for control

Jackson went from the professor's chair to the officer's saddle. He carried with him the very elements of character which made him odious as a teacher but I never saw him in an arbitrary mood.

a "grouplet"—a small, self-organized team that has almost no budget and even less authority, but that tries to change something within the company.

management—not merely how bosses treat us at work, but also how the broader ethos has leached into schools, families, and many other aspects of our lives.

In our offices and our classrooms we have way too much compliance and way too little engagement. The former might get you through the day, but only the latter will get you through the night.

Whether you're fixing sinks, ringing up groceries, selling cars, or writing a lesson plan, you and I need autonomy just as deeply as a great painter. However, encouraging autonomy doesn't mean discouraging accountability. Whatever operating system is in place, people must be accountable for their work.

Type I behavior emerges when people have autonomy over the four T's: their task, their time, their technique, and their team.

4. Subversion The fewest moral regrets involved the Authority/Subversion foundation. A handful of people regretted "dishonoring my parents" and "being disrespectful to my teachers

Desecration Regrets about violating sanctity were more numerous than regrets about subverting authority. These regrets were also emotionally intense—especially when they centered on one of the most fiercely contested issues of the last sixty years: abortion.

Power can move you off the proper position on the dial and scramble the signals you receive, distorting clear messages and obscuring more subtle ones.

In the name of rejecting ecclesiastical authority as "hierarchy" or "tradition" as theological manipulation and bondage, we have instead created a hermeneutic of suspicion and have invested every biblically informed conscience (instead of a pope) to speak ex cathedra. It is a Pyrrhic victory for Free church Protestantism when the net effect of its teaching results in the replacing of the tyranny of the magisterium with the tyranny of individualism.

If you work hard and stay in line, the machines feed you and keep you warm and alive. You learn to ignore the sharp crack of the sentry guns. Force yourself to forget what the sound means. You look for the carrot. Stop seeing the stick.

Presidents and generals and all the important people in position to make the most important decisions are, by and large, the least equipped for making them. —MICHAEL CRICHTON

You can discipline in a way that's high on relationship, high on respect, and low on drama and conflict—and