Quotes About Authority

In the kingdom of the blind, Amelia recited to herself as she trudged along— —the one-eyed man is king, Gamache read.

Recruiters, for terrorist cells and police forces and armies, relied on this simple truth: if you got people young enough, they could be made to do just about anything.

The madness of crowds was a terrible thing to see. The madness of police with clubs and guns was even worse.

But Isabelle Lacoste had been in the Sûreté long enough to know how much easier it was to shoot than to talk. How much easier it was to shout than to be reasonable. How much easier it was to humiliate and demean and misuse authority than to be dignified and courteous, even to those who were themselves none of those things. How much more courage it took to be kind than to be cruel.

Chief Superintendent Arnot might hold power, but Armand Gamache was the more powerful man.

the one-eyed man is king,

He expected people to play fair. Rules meant order. Without them they'd be killing each other. It began with butting in, with parking in disabled spaces, with smoking in elevators. And it ended in murder.

He sounded more confident than he really was. But Chief Superintendent Gamache understood that a leader could not afford to reveal his own emotions. He couldn't demand courage in others while quaking in fear himself.

The senior council couldn't allow me to disobey orders and get away with it. This is their punishment. And it's right. Just as what I did was right.

The lion, while nominally in charge, had actually been taken in by the fox.

Like whites in South Africa or the Southern states who knew that things had changed, who even accepted the changes, but who couldn't quite shake the certainty deeply, diplomatically, hidden, that they should still be in charge.

It's possible to have a leader you wouldn't choose as a friend. But you need to at least respect them.

This was a walled world. With a pretense of control, without the reality of it.

The population had a right to expect that people with a gun and a badge would also have self-control.

The Chief nodded. He

Imagine a world where you could do anything. Anything. And get away with it,' said Myrna, warming to the topic again. 'What power. Who here wouldn't be corrupted?

He came over and ruffled my hair, which is technically assault. I could get on the blower to ChildLine.

At that point Ms Fox came in and said, "Hello, carry on as if I am not here." Then she lay down on the floor.

I think the curfew's about public order. The government don't have the balls or the manpower to order people to stay in their houses indefinitely.

The diiference between men and dogs is dogs don't allow the dumbest and most inept members to become leaders of the pack.

So far as English versification is concerned, Pope was the world, and all the world was Pope.

What a marvel bureaucracy is, which can smother Such quite elementary feelings, and tag A man with a number, and set him to wag His legs and his arms at the word of command Or the blow of a whistle! He's certainly damned, Fit only for mince-meat, if a little gold lace And an upturned moustache can set him to face Bullets, and bayonets, and death, and diseases, Because some one he calls his Emperor, pleases.

What lackeys men are, who might be such fine fellows! To be killing each other, unmercifully, At an order, as though one said, "Bring up the tea."

Not to fear a person with power--to profess, instead, one's love--is to deny that that person has power.