Quotes About Authority

Max would conclude, that's who I want to be. The pope. And I'll do the same thing he does. I'll keep all the goddamn money.

You can do things his way, or you can wish you had.

people are forever confusing will with power

Maybe, as the old lady had suggested, it was all that catechism, its rote insistence on subordinating one's will to God's, so many of these lessons administered by the now senile priest who was seated a few yards away and giving him the evil eye. What in the world could these old goats have been discussing, Miles wondered.

THE THING TO UNDERSTAND about your father," Lincoln's mother had once explained when he was in high school, "is that you always have a choice. You can do things his way, or you can wish you had.

It's none of your business anyhow," Wirf said. Words to live by, Sully had to admit. But he kept hearing Peter's mockery. Not really his dog. Not really his house. Not really his business. And there were other not reallys as well. There

someone with access to an inner source of spiritual insight does not need the church—or does not need it as ordinary people do. Furthermore, such a person often has an inner authority lacking in many leaders of established religions. This was precisely the response Jesus evoked when he began to preach: "And they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority and not as the scribes" (Mark 1:22).

The room was full of law. Apparently somebody on Younger's force had invited the state police to attend after all; the pack of technical men, with their cameras and chalk, powders and notebooks and little white envelopes, all seemed to professional, too sleek, too quiet and efficient to be any part of the local law. The local law was three dough-faced farm hands in rumpled blue uniforms, standing around the room looking for traffic to direct.

absolute power is corrupting

Not only had he lived where they told him to live, not only had he done what they told him to do, not only had he done these things until he had killed to be quit of them ; but even after obeying, after killing, they still ruled him. He was their property, heart and soul, body and blood ; what they did claimed every atom of him, sleeping and waking...

Why can't grown-ups just give me stuff, let me do what I like and then go away A LOT?

see 1 Sam. 22:28).

On the bright side, Percy said, both Jason and I outrank you, Octavian. So we can both tell you to shut up.

All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorms room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my Essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.

Young people don't always do what they're told, but if they can pull it off and do something wonderful, sometimes they escape punishment.

Can't this thing go any faster?" Thalia demanded. Zoe glared at her. "I cannot control traffic." You both sound like my mother," I said. Shut up!" they both said in union.

Names have power.

Leo frowned at the giant's spire. Can't we blow it up or something? Without me, you do not have the power, Hera said. You might as well try to destroy a mountain. Done that once today, Jason said.

I wasn't aiming at the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.

You know how teachers tell you the magic word is 'please'? That's not true. The magic word is 'puke'. It will get you out of class faster than anything else.

Words are the source of all power. And names are more than just a collection of letters.

Stop! he yelled at the others. Multigrain fighting is not allowed!

THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD!!!!

Power makes good people uneasy rather than joyful or boastful. That's why good people so rarely rise to power.