Quotes About Authority

No hay razón para volverse introspectivo, haciendo de tus sentimientos un ídolo. Pídele al Espíritu Santo que te ayude a sacar a la luz y tomar el control de tus pensamientos. Ejercitemos la autoridad para romper el poder de los espíritus malignos.

The greatest achievement of the human race was not conquering death. It was ending government.

This is America. People do whatever the fuck they feel like doing, you got a problem with that? Because they have a right to. And because they have guns and no one can fucking stop them.

To own a slave was to have a license for libertine behavior, because sexual violation was intrinsic to slavery. The slaveowner had the full legal right to do with his property as he saw fit

We spend the first year of a child's life teaching it to walk and talk and the rest of its life to shut up and sit down. There's something wrong there.

Rule number one: Don't fuck with librarians.

Because he did not have time to read every new book in his field, the great Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski used a simple and efficient method of deciding which ones were worth his attention: Upon receiving a new book, he immediately checked the index to see if his name was cited, and how often. The more "Malinowski" the more compelling the book. No "Malinowski," and he doubted the subject of the book was anthropology at all.

Because we are imperfect souls, our knowledge is imperfect. The history of learning is an adventure in overcoming our errors. There is no sin in being wrong. The sin is in our unwillingness to examine our own beliefs, and in believing that our authorities cannot be wrong.

How delighted would be all the kings, czars and führers of the past (and commissars of the present) to know that censorship is not a necessity when all political discourse takes the form of a jest.

Naturally, bureaucrats can be expected to embrace a technology that helps to create the illusion that decisions are not under their control. Because of its seeming intelligence and impartiality, a computer has an almost magical tendency to direct attention away from the people in charge of bureaucratic functions and toward itself, as if the computer were the true source of authority. A bureaucrat armed with a computer is the unacknowledged legislator of our age, and a terrible burden to bear.

I am constantly amazed at how obediently people accept explanations that begin with the words "The computer shows …" or "The computer has determined …" It is Technopoly's equivalent of the sentence "It is God's will," and the effect is roughly the same.

Ich meine damit eine Geschichte. Aber nicht irgendeine Geschichte. Ich denke an große Erzählungen – Erzählungen, die tief und komplex genug sind, um Erklärungen hinsichtlich der Herkunft und der Zukunft eines Volkes zu bieten; Erzählungen, die Ideale aufstellen, Verhaltungsregeln vorgeben, die Quellen von Autorität benennen und durch all dies eine Dimension von Kontinuität und Sinnhaftigkeit erzeugen.

It is quite probable that the most original problem solving activity students engage in school is related to the invention of systems for beating the system.

Another possible conclusion was expressed by George Bernard Shaw, also about fifty years ago, when he wrote that the average person today is about as credulous as was the average person in the Middle Ages. In the Middle Ages, people believed in the authority of their religion, no matter what. Today, we believe in the authority of our science, no matter what.

Those who would be gods refashion themselves into images the viewers would have them be.

A bureacrat armed with a computer is the unacknowledged legislator of our age, and a terrible burden to bear. We cannot dismiss the possibility that, if Adolf Eichmann had been able to say that it was not he but a battary of computers that directed the Jews to the appropriate crematoria, he may never have been asked to answer for his actions.

For instance, Thamus warns that the pupils of Theuth will develop an undeserved reputation for wisdom. He means to say that those who cultivate competence in the use of a new technology become an elite group that are granted undeserved authority and prestige by those who have no such competence.

Malcolm Browne managed to take a photograph of Arnett [AP's Peter Arnett] standing behind Halberstam for protection a moment later, just before another plainclothesman sneaked up behind Browne and smashed his camera with a rock. The rock did not damage the film inside. The Surete men backed off. They apparently had orders not use clubs, and they decided Halberstam was too much for them hand to hand. The uniformed police did not intervene

We already have all the power we need, because of our position in Christ.

Strength, confidence and invincibility had to exude from him at all times. Any vacuum in power could lead to injury, betrayal or death.

The household revolved around Matthias's power, his anger, and obedience to him in all things.

The hard necessity of bringing the judge on the bench down into the dock has been the peculiar responsibility of the writer in all ages of man.

it is always the oppressor, not the oppressed, who dictates the form of the struggle.

an immoral and unjust legal system would breed contempt for its laws and regulations.