Quotes About Authority

How exciting to be at the center of power." "It is exciting, but strangely enough it doesn't feel like the center of power. In a democracy the president is subject to the voters." "But surely he doesn't just do what the public wants." "Not exactly, no. President Wilson says a leader must treat public opinion the way a sailor deals with the wind, using it to blow the ship in one direction or another, but never trying to go directly against it.

And so, Aldred thought, great ones sin with impunity while lesser men are brutally chastised.

They wanted to look as if they had the right to close meetings and empty buildings, to burst into homes and offices and arrest people, to drag them to jails and camps and beat them up, interrogate and torture them, as

It's increasing the pressure on the Big Mules

I've met the people who run Alabama. Believe me, they're not that smart.

The world has become wicked. Heresy, lasciviousness, and disrespect are rife. Men question authority, women flaunt their bodies, children disobey their parents. God is angry, and His rage is fearsome. Don't try to run from His justice! It will find you, no matter where you hide.

No matter how long she argued, people would believe the priests, not

And that would be sufficient, if we lived in a world that was ruled by laws." Aldred sat on a stool, leaned forward, and spoke quietly. "But the man matters more than the law, as you know.

Feeling that everyone else was so much more powerful and sophisticated than he was, he had lost sight of his true values, suspended his critical faculties, and placed his trust in his superiors. His reward had been treachery. He

Le monde du pouvoir, des biens terrestres exigeait qu'un homme fût méfiant, exigeant et insistant

was one of those inadequate people who were so scared by life that they preferred to live under harsh authority, to be told what to do and what to think by a government that allowed no dissent. They were foolish and dangerous, but there were an awful lot of them.

Communists in power would be as oppressive as the aristocracy they replaced.

But you should go to bed." "With your ladyship's permission, I'd like to stay up until Lord Remarc telephones again.

Maud had feared this. Fitz was no compromiser. He believed that Britain should issue orders and the world should obey. The idea that the government might have to negotiate with others as equals was abhorrent to him. And there were distressingly many who agreed.

Repress those who complain, rather than address their discontents.

If you owe a hundred dollars, the bank has you in its power; but if you owe a million dollars, you have the bank in your power.

In 1872 the anarchist leader Mikhail Bakunin warned Karl Marx that Communists in power would be as oppressive as the aristocracy they replaced. After what has happened in Russia, can you honestly say Bakunin was wrong?

El anarquismo es la creencia de que nadie está legitimado para gobernar. Todas las filosofías políticas, desde el derecho divino de los reyes hasta el contrato social de Rousseau, intentan justificar la autoridad. Los anarquistas creen que todas esas teorías fallan, y que por tanto ninguna forma de autoridad es legítima.

Habéis estado demasiado tiempo aquí sentado para el bien que habéis hecho. Marchad, os digo, y libradnos de vos. ¡En el nombre de Dios, marchad!».

Arrogance was the vice of good leaders. - Prior Philip

Galliéni, a crusty old soldier, had been brought out of retirement. He was famous for holding meetings at which no one was allowed to sit down: he believed people reached decisions faster that way.

America is ruled by laws, not mobs!

No se le había pasado por la cabeza que acusar a las agencias gubernamentales de actos ilegales era en sí un acto ilegal? ¿Imaginaba que estaba viviendo en una democracia liberal degenerada?

El primer asunto que debían tratar cuando se iniciara la sesión esa tarde era la Ley de Habilitación, que permitiría que el gabinete de Hitler pudiera aprobar leyes sin el permiso del Reichstag.