Quotes About Authority

To restore religion, gentlemen, it is necessary to condemn the Church.

My hatred of privilege and human authority was unbounded; perhaps at times I have been guilty, in my indignation, of confounding persons and things; at present I can only despise and complain; to cease to hate I only needed to know.

Read Euler , read Euler , he is the master of us all.

Information is power. --Humfrey

?statymai, - kart? pasak? jis Džonui, - n?ra Dievo duoti, bet žmogaus sugalvoti. Pasiži?r?k gerai ? žmones, kurie juos kuria, ir pagalvok, kokiems tikslams jie tarnauja - juk dažniausiai apginti nuosavyb? t?, kurie j? turi, nuo t?, kurie jos neturi.

I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself.

We have to defend views we don't share and impose them on the public; deal with questions we don't understand and vulgarize them for the gallery. We can't have ideas of our own, we have to have those of the editor; and even the editor doesn't have the right to think with his own head, because when he's sent for by the board of directors he has to stifle his own views, if he has any, and support those of the shareholders.

When I was twenty they told me to swear loyalty to the King, a person who acts in the capacity because his father and grandfather did the same before him. I took the oath because they forced my to, otherwise I wouldn't have done it. Then they sent me to kill people I didn't know who were dressed rather like I was. One day they said to me: "Look, there's one of your enemies, fire at him," and I fired, but missed. But he fired and wounded me. I don't know why they said it was a glorious wound.

Those who seek power are not worthy of that power.

Oligarchy: A government resting on a valuation of property, in which the rich have power and the poor man is deprived of it.

In the early days of his power, he is full of smiles, and he salutes everyone whom he meets.

Democracy passes into despotism.

There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.

Let there be one man who has a city obedient to his will, and he might bring into existence the ideal polity about which the world is so incredulous.

The rulers of the state are the only persons who ought to have the privilege of lying, either at home or abroad they may be allowed to lie for the good of the state.

He who does not desire power is fit to hold it.

Just as it would be madness to settle on medical treatment for the body of a person by taking an opinion poll of the neighbors, so it is irrational to prescribe for the body politic by polling the opinions of the people at large.

To the rulers of the state then, if to any, it belongs of right to use falsehood, to deceive either enemies or their own citizens, for the good of the state: and no one else may meddle with this privilege.

The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.

One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

The measure of a man is what he does with power.

Those who tell the stories rule society.

The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government is to live under the government of worse men.

This expression of ours, "Father of a family."