Quotes About Authority

In many ways the rise of the state was the descent of the world from freedom to slavery

In answer to James and John's request for an esteemed place in God's kingdom, Jesus taught that true greatness comes by serving, not by selfishly seeking a position of authority. No one has an inherent right to claim a position of authority. The Father assigns such positions (Rom. 13:1). Jesus knew this. Even Christ's authority was delegated to Him by God the Father (Matt. 28:18).

The Bible teaches that all authority rightfully belongs to God. Any legitimate authority people wield is delegated to them by God, and they must answer to Him for the way they use it. Authority is not to be used for personal gain. It's not about displaying personal power. It's about obediently serving the God who assigned you to serve in such a position—the very attitude demonstrated by Christ Himself.

One positive command he gave us: You shall love and honor your emperor. In every congregation a prayer must be said for the czar's health, or the chief of police would close the synagogue.

On a royal birthday every house must fly a flag, or the owner would be dragged to a police station and be fined twenty-five rubles.

Certain I am, that Christian Religion does no where allow Rebellion.

The mariner will have dominion over the atmosphere and the great deep, over the fish of the sea and the fowls of the air.

Women in power are seen as breaking down barriers, or alternatively as taking something to which they are not quite entitled.

I do wonder if, in some places, the presence of large numbers of women in parliament means that parliament is where the power is not.

the empire created the emperors – not the other way round.

How have we learned to look at those women who exercise power, or who try to? What are the cultural underpinnings of misogyny in politics or the workplace, and its forms (what kind of misogyny, aimed at what or whom, using what words or images, and with what effects)? How and why do the conventional definitions of 'power' (or for that matter of 'knowledge', 'expertise' and 'authority') that we carry round in our heads exclude women?

to become a man (or at least an elite man) was to claim the right to speak.

We have to be more reflective about what power is, what it is for

No one has ever framed a better critique of Roman imperial power than the words put into the mouths of rebels against Rome by Roman writers themselves.

Do those words matter? Of course they do, because they underpin an idiom that acts to remove the authority, the force, even the humour from what women have to say. It is an idiom that effectively repositions women back into the domestic sphere (people 'whinge' over things like the washing up); it trivialises their words, or it 're-privatises' them.

Si no percibimos que las mujeres están totalmente dentro de las estructuras de poder, entonces lo que tenemos que redefinir es el poder, no a las mujeres.

When you are about to hand control of the senate and people of Rome, the armies, the provinces, the allies to one man alone, would you look to the belly of a wife to produce him or search for an heir to supreme power only within the walls of your own home? … If he is to rule over all, he must be chosen from all.

Nuestro modelo cultural y mental de persona poderosa sigue siendo irrevocablemente masculino

Es habitual pensar que las mujeres que ocupan cargos de poder están derribando barreras o apoderándose de algo a lo que no tienen derecho.

The woman who can whisper in her husband's ear wields more power de facto, or rather is often alleged to, than the colleagues who can only send official requests and memos.

To put it another way, if women are not perceived to be fully within the structures of power, surely it is power that we need to redefine rather than women?

In 58 BCE Cicero's enemies argued that, whatever authority he had claimed under the senate's prevention of terrorism decree, his executions of Catiline's followers had flouted the fundamental right of any Roman citizen to a proper trial.

Cicerón hizo ejecutar a los hombres sumariamente, sin ni siquiera un juicio de farsa. Con triunfalismo, anunció sus muertes a la entusiasmada multitud con un famoso eufemismo de una sola palabra: vixere, «han vivido»; es decir, «están muertos».

There was one obligation that the Romans imposed on all those who came under their control: namely, to provide troops for the Roman armies.