Quotes About Authority

As they cannot be defined univocally, nor irrefutably demonstrated, so-called "human rights" serve as a pretext for the individual who rebels against a positive law. The individual has no more rights than the benefit that can be inferred from another's duty.

Society tends to be unjust, but not in the way the conceited imagine. There are always more masters who do not deserve their position than servants who do not deserve theirs.

Nothing makes clearer the limits of science than the scientist's opinions about any topic that is not strictly related to his profession.

La condición suficiente y necesaria del despotismo es la desaparición de toda especie de autoridad social no conferida por el Estado.

La política sabia es el arte de vigorizar la sociedad y de debilitar el Estado.

Wird einem Demokraten ein Finger brandig, fällt ihm nur eines ein: Ein Gesetz zu fordern, das das Abschneiden aller Hände anordnet.

The society of the future: slavery without masters.

The modern mentality does not conceive that order can be imposed without resorting to police regulations.

Die Tyrannei eines Individuums ist dem Despotismus des Gesetzes vorzuziehen, denn der Tyrann ist verwundbar und das Gesetz unkörperlich.

Der Fortschrittler triumphiert immer und der Reaktionär hat immer recht. Recht haben heißt in der Politik nicht die Szene beherrschen, sondern vom ersten Akt an die Leichen des fünften vorhersagen.

The democratic historian teaches that the democrat kills only because his victims force him to do so.

Authority is not delegating men, but procuring values.

Among the vices of democracy one must count the impossibility of someone occupying an important position there without it being his ambition.

Modern man accepts any yoke, as long as the hand imposing it is impersonal.

A noble society is one where obeying and exercising authority are ethical behaviors, and not mere practical necessities.

Every rebellion against the order of man is noble, so long as it does not disguise rebelliousness against the order of the world.

Power more surely corrupts the man who covets it than the man who exercises it.

Nicht nach Freiheit strebt der Verstand, sondern nach Unterwerfung. Die Wahrheit ist der Glanz der Notwendigkeit.

Where everyone believes he has a right to rule, everyone eventually prefers that one man alone rule. The tyrant frees each individual from the tyranny of his neighbor.

When the tyrant is the anonymous law, modern man believes he is free.

We who want to admit nothing but what has value, will always seem naïve to those who recognize nothing but what is in force.

If it were not for the government, we should have nothing to laugh at in France.

Despising money is like toppling a king off his throne.

In this connection, faith and experience teach us many truths by means of the short-cut of authority and by the proofs of very pleasant and agreeable feelings.