Quotes About Authority

The spell of power never quite releases its hold.

You know, if you think about it, the most powerful people on this earth probably never raise their voices - they just say it and people hop to, because they have that power.

Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.

Power always sincerely, conscientiously, de très bon foi, believes itself right. Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak.

Well, I'm not involved in polemics. I never wanted to have any position of power, and I don't have it.

The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to.

Those who exert the first influence upon the mind have the greatest power.

Arbitrary power has seldom... been introduced in any country at once. It must be introduced by slow degrees, and as it were step by step.

We all want to be guilty, because guilt is power.

Any society that derives its power and authority from the will of man alone lives apart from God and will crumble in the end.

It is a common happening that those in power, as their tenure of office continues, find themselves less and less able to contemplate relinquishing it.

All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State.

Those who do not wish to kill any one, wish they had the power. [Lat., Et qui nolunt occidere quemquam Posse volunt.]

Power is more safely retained by cautious than by severe councils. [Lat., Potentiam cautis quam acribus consiliis tutius haberi.]

Without any doubt, I am striving for power.

We should have a strong president. Strong enough to resist the temptation of taking power that a president shouldn't have.

The Christian religion is a stranger to mere despotic power. The mildness so frequently recommended in the Gospel is incompatible with the despotic rage.

No doubt that the U.S. is a super-power capable of conquering a relatively small country, but is it able to control it?

In Britain the power of authority was weakened. There was much more individual freedom and there was great academic freedom.

Ignorant power is a bane!

Power is a drug on which the politicians are hooked. They buy it from the voters, using the voters' own money.

The peaceful transition of power is one of the hallmarks of our democracy.

The depositary of power is always unpopular.

Habit is necessary to give power.