Quotes About Authority

She reminded him that in the past he had been fond of quoting a French maxim, "On ne règne sur les âmes que par le calme," meaning, essentially, "One leads by calm.

He could look at himself in a mirror and tell himself that he was one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the world... He could feel that he was a god in disguise.

Ferris, himself fed up with construction delays and Burnham's pestering, had told Gronau to turn the wheel or tear it off the tower.

Oliver Cromwell in 1653: "You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing! Depart, I say, and let us have done with you! In the name of God, go!

But you will ride it—instead of being driven before it—Thank Heaven that you are there, & at the helm of our destiny

The Fringes of Power; the work

He disliked the social obligations of the captaincy.

They will breed either dislike or a slave mentality—(Rebellion in War time being out of the question!)

Turner, that day, was master of one of the great greyhounds of the North Atlantic—and looked the part.

On ne règne sur les âmes que par le calme

There are no ethics when you're dealing with the police. Or I should say when the police are dealing with you. You're supposed to be bound by ethics. The police don't have ethics. They act on the assumption that they're 'getting the truth,' whereas you are 'protecting a criminal

It was a bitter moment for us. We weren't two mature parents. We were just two kids playing grown-up. We still needed Mommy and Daddy's permission, blessings, and money to survive.

You show me a boy who brings a snake home to his mother and I'll show you an orphan.

I've always admired parents who discipline their children in hushed whispers: "Arthur, you are a naughty boy for turning on all the gas jets. Now I want you to drag your little sister out into the fresh air, give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and apologize. Don't make Mama have to raise her voice." I

It is this that makes people so willing 'to follow brash, strong-looking demagogues with tight jaws and loud voices: those who focus their measured words and their sharpened eyes in the intensity of hate, and so seem most capable of cleansing the world of the vague, the weak, the uncertain, the evil. Ah, to give oneself over to their direction—what calm, what relief.

The thing that has to be explained in human relations is precisely the fascination of the person who holds or symbolizes power. There is something about him that seems to radiate out to others and to melt them into his aura, a "fascinating effect," as Christine Olden called it, of "the narcissistic personality"3 or, as Jung preferred to call him, the "mana-personality.

If we don't have the omnipotence of gods, we at least can destroy like the gods.

men worship and fear power and so give their loyalty to those who dispense it.

Naively, one may suppose those at the Top who take decisions are poly­mathic supermen, somehow qualified to assess the many-sided implications of their decisions. Acquaintance with any of them dispels such illusions.

They were beaten to start with. They were beaten when they took them from their farms and put them in the army. That is why the peasant has wisdom, because he is defeated from the start. Put him in power and see how wise he is.

Until you're grown-up they send you to reform school. After you're grown-up they send you to the penitentiary.

It is the fault of the orders, which are too rigid. There is no allowance for a change in circumstance.

That is what you did. You died. You did not know what it was about. You never had time to learn. They threw you in and told you the rules and the first time they caught you off base they killed you.

We had a Corsican wine that had great authority and a low price. It was a very Corsican wine and you could dilute it by half with water and still receive its message. A Moveable Feast