Quotes About Authority

The intellectual activity of those without power is always characterized as non-intellectual.

Power thrills, consistency kills.

There's more power in being Oprah Winfrey than in being Barack Obama.

Powerlessness corrupts: absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely.

Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.

The orators and the despots have the least power in their cities ... since they do nothing that they wish to do, practically speaking, though they do whatever they think to be best.

The essence of modern dictatorship is the combination of one-dimensional, flat thinking with power and terror.

You gain power by pretending to be weak.

When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy.

You can't trust anybody with power.

Power is a thing of perception. They don't need to be able to kill you. They just need you to think they are able to kill you

Money: power at its most liquid.

You have no power at all if you do not exercise constant power.

The good man is he who rules himself as he does his own property: his autonomous being is modelled on material power.

Power! Did you ever hear of men being asked whether other souls should have power or not? It is born in them.

The first principle of a civilized state is that power is legitimate only when it is under contract.

Power is gradually stealing away from the many to the few, because the few are more vigilant and consistent.

Representation, then, is not - nor can it be - neutral; it is an act - indeed the founding act - of power in our culture.

All the idols made by man, however terrifying they may be, are in point of fact subordinate to him, and that is why he will always have it in his power to destroy them.

Absolute power demoralizes.

Power without abuse loses its charm.

Man's rank is his power to uplift.

Rulers do not like to admit that their power is restricted by any laws other than those of physics and biology. They never ascribe their failures and frustrations to the violation of economic law.

Nothing, indeed, but the possession of some power can with any certainty discover what at the bottom is the true character of any man.