Quotes About Authority

KELLY WALSH STOOD twelve inches from the table, close enough so he was forced to look up, but not so close as to touch the table. Pike recognized this as a controlling technique. By assuming a superior position she hoped to create a sense of authority. Like unplugging the camera. She was demonstrating she had the power to do as she wished, even at Parker Center. Pike

The Godfather doesn't call the police. He sends Luca Brasi.

Hess said, "What the fuck?" I said, "Temperamental." SACs aren't used to being cut off. I touched her arm. "We

She didn't say anything for a time, and then she said, "Well, in this case the powers that be are probably right." I nodded, but she probably couldn't see it. "I don't believe Truly had a secret agreement with Teddy Martin. Green fabricated that, just as he fabricated the business about Pritzik and Richards.

Ellis said, "Look, Mr. Warren signs the checks, right? He says jump, I say which side of my ass you want me to land on?

As we learned to our horror at the turn of the twentieth century in the Philippines, as well as in the 1960s in Vietnam, and again in the last decade in Iraq, to invade is to govern. Once you decide to send in ground forces in significant numbers, it becomes your job to administer the territory you've just conquered—or to identify someone immediately who can.

By this axe I rule!

You're praying, they're praying, and God, oddly enough, will come down on the side of the one with the most guns and most willing to use them. God always does.

Give the agent something easy to reject, something to justify his authority - that way they won't look too closely at the rest of your things.

Well-liked… a dangerous quality in a leader.

Government isn't about religion or signs or symbols… It's about power and control.

You don't correct a president. You merely compliment them on their wisdom in seeking your counsel.

Being the boss anywhere is lonely. Being a female boss in a world of mostly men is especially so.

The strongest and most effective force in guaranteeing the long-term maintenance of power is not violence in all the forms deployed by the dominant to control the dominated, but consent in all the forms in which the dominated acquiesce in their own domination.

Ignorance and power and pride are a deadly mixture, you know.

A Prince asked the dying spanish statesman, Does your Excellency forgive all your enemies? I do not have to forgive all my enemies, answered the stateman, I have had them all shot.

Such is the fate, in some form or other, of all those who unbalance the master's sense of self, poke holes in his vanity, or make him doubt his pre-eminence.

Power rarely ends up in the hands of those who start a revolution, or even of those who further it; power sticks to those who bring it to a conclusion.

The more Coriolanus said, the less powerful he appeared—a person who cannot control his words shows that he cannot control himself, and is unworthy of respect.

Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite – inspire fear and insecurity. Make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power.

Acted like a king to be treated like one.

Power goes to those who end the revolution. Not the one who starts it.

Power depends on appearing larger than other people

To some people the notion of consciously playing power games—no matter how indirect—seems evil, asocial, a relic of the past. They believe they can opt out of the game by behaving in ways that have nothing to do with power. You must beware of such people, for while they express such opinions outwardly, they are often among the most adept players at power.