Quotes About Authority

When someone with the authority of a teacher describes the world and you are not in it, there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked into a mirror and saw nothing.

I'm a passionate monarchist.

I read a lot, very passionately, from the time I was very young, but it was a constant battle; my mother would more or less let me be, but with my father, I was always searching for a place where he wouldn't find me. Whenever he saw me reading, he would tell me to put the book down and go outside, act like a normal person.

People - and I think this is particularly true of Americans - don't like to be passive. They like to seize control.

The House of Lords says I'm not a member of it. My passport says I am - get used to it.

I'm a pastor. I say, 'Let the church say amen,' and that settles it. Everything has been said, you know; it's like we have to agree with God.

When you subpoena one pastor, you subpoena every pastor.

Happy and fortunate indeed would this nation be, nay, completely blessed, if it had good prelates and pastors, and but one prince, and that prince a good one.

The mistrust of government that blossomed in the late '60s has become a chronic and in some ways pathological condition.

That's why I never became a director. I never had patience with people.

I have been told by hospital authorities that more copies of my works are left behind by departing patients than those of any other author.

I don't believe the government should determine what a woman does in this area any more than it should tell a chief executive how to run a company. Personal and family matters, relationships between doctors and patients should not be within the purview of government.

I don't like following the rules - the patriarchal rules.

Hoover was a patriot in his heart, but he definitely exceeded his power.

I don't need a certificate of my patriotism from those in the establishment.

Who is going to take business advice from Paul Ryan? Who? Nobody. Nobody.

I didn't really start writing about the church in earnest until the mid-2000s, so I wasn't present for or a participant in a lot of the John Paul II-era debates about papal authority.

I can't speak on behalf of the show. I'm not a creator; I'm just a pawn.

Obviously, every dictator pays a great deal of attention to who is running the army. There's always a base right outside the capitol to protect the head of government.

I do think everybody pays their dues in Gilead, whether you're the most high-up commander or not. Everybody has to face the consequences of their actions.

This world is run by people who know how to do things. They know how things work. They are equipped. Up there, there's a layer of people who run everything. But we - we're just peasants. We don't understand what's going on, and we can't do anything.

There is a kind of desperate need for somebody to tell everyone what to do, which I find really peculiar in America. And then when you tell them, they're not interested, because it's also a country where everybody's opinion is their opinion, and they really don't give a damn what you think. So it's a very odd experience.

The thing the British hate more than anything else is people who are getting above themselves. There are a hundred different expressions for it all around the country, but it comes down to the same thing: this inherent mistrust of authority, and trying to topple people off a pedestal.

People want to dethrone you from the pedestal that you're on when you have a platform, when you have a voice.