Quotes About Authority

You have already disarmed my men without my knowledge, are their arms to be returned or not?

Mineralmaster, Ninurta

All political power comes from the barrel of a gun.

Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party.

All reactionaries are paper tigers. In appearance, the reactionaries are terrifying, but in reality they are not so powerful. From a long-term point of view, it is not the reactionaries but the people who are really powerful.

We are our own gods.

Only he who has no use for the empire is fit to be entrusted with it.

The petty thief is imprisoned but the big thief becomes a feudal lord.

He who steals a belt buckle pays with his life; he who steals a state gets to be a feudal lord.

Unfortunately, lack of obedience is one of our most difficult problems in America. Many people erroneously believe that being obedient means being subservient to someone else. In reality, it indicates respect for the authority of an authority figure. Realistically speaking, you must respect authority before you can legitimately expect others to respect your authority.

Politics is the science of how who gets what, when and why." —Sidney Hillman

The first time I spoke publicly about the Stanford Prison Experiment, Stanley Milgram told me: "Your study is going to take all the ethical heat off of my back. People are now going to say yours is the most unethical study ever, and not mine."

As a result of the prison study, I really became more aware of the central role of power in our lives. I became more aware of the power I have as a teacher. I started consciously doing things to minimize the negative use of power in the classroom. I encouraged students to challenge me.

This is the woman who stopped the Stanford Prison Study. When I said it got out of control, I was the prison superintendent. I didn't know it was out of control. I was totally indifferent. She came down, saw that madhouse and said, "You know what, it's terrible what you're doing to those boys. They're not prisoners, they're not guards, they're boys, and you are responsible." And I ended the study the next day. The good news is I married her the next year.

It's a strange thing, we think that law brings order. Law doesn't. How do we know that law does not bring order? Look around us. We live under the rule of law. Notice how much order we have?

When authority is backed up by an immediate physical compulsion, what we are dealing with is not authority proper (i.e. symbolic authority), but simply an agency of brute force.

The way we, everyday people are addressed by social authority, whatever we call it -- it's no longer telling us "sacrifice your life" for British empire, for socialism, whatever. It?s not. It's some kind of permissive bullsh*t basically. Society is telling us, like, be true to yourself, authentic, develop your potential, be kind to others. It's kind of what I ironically call a slightly enlightened Buddhist hedonism.

It's bad if we are controlled, but if we're not, it can be even worse.

Confucius was not so much a philsopher as a proto-ideologist: what interested him was not metaphysical Truths but rather a harmonious social order within which individuals could lead happy and ethical lives. He was the first to outline clearly what one is tempted to call the elementary scene of ideology, its zero-level, which consists in asserting the (nameless) authority of some substantial Tradition.

It's clear that politeness to one's elders can't always be justified on the basis of the elder's superior wisdom. It's just that it's not attractive to see a young person answering an older person back.

Well, parental control is somewhat illusory, right?

A leader is firm enough to be responsive to changes.

By nature, men are uncontrollable and wild, and it should be, but women have the key to control them, if they know how to use it.

The creator created women to control those wild, uncontrollable, intriguing men.