Quotes About Authority

There is a weird power in a spoken word.

The priests talk of consecrated ground! Bah! All the earth made by God is holy; but the sea, which knows nothing of kings and priests and tyrants, is the holiest of all.

The terrosirt and the policeman both come form the same basket. Revolution, legality - countermoves in the same game; forms of idleness at bottom identical.

Had he been informed by an indisputable authority that the end of the world was to be finally accomplished by a catastrophic disturbance of the atmosphere, he would have assimilated the information under the simple idea of dirty weather, and no other, because he had no experience of cataclysms, and belief does not necessarily imply comprehension.

The field of influence was great and infinitely varied - once one had conquered a name.

of a decent young citizen in a toga—perhaps too much dice, you know—coming out here in the train of some prefect, or tax-gatherer, or trader even

I might just as well have ordered a tree not to sway in the wind.

Toodles looked so thunderstruck that the Assistant Commissioner smiled faintly.

Conrad regarded the formation of a representative government in Russia as unfeasible and foresaw a transition from autocracy to dictatorship.

Of course, government in general, any government anywhere, is a thing of exquisite comicality to a discerning mind;

Pero ellos no tenían nada en que apoyarse. No eran colonizadores, y sospecho que su administración no era más que una opresión, solo eso.

The terrorist and the policeman both come from the same basket.  Revolution, legality—counter moves in the same game; forms of idleness at bottom identical.

Mr. Verloc, going out in the morning, left his shop nominally in charge of his brother-in-law.

It seems that the savage autocracy, any more than the divine democracy, does not limit its diet exclusively to the bodies of its enemies. It devours its friends and servants as well.

Had you been the Emperor of the East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence.

a character exposed to those strongest of all influences: the intrigues, flattery, and self-deception inseparable from power;

How can we fight the French, Prince? said Count Rostopchin. Can we arm ourselves against our teachers and divinities?

The truth travels over the earth secretly; it seeks a nest among the people. To the authorities it's like a knife in the fire. They cannot accept it. It will cut them and burn them. Truth is your good friend and a sworn enemy of the authorities — that's why it hides itself.

The Emperor proposes to give all commanders of divisions the right to shoot marauders, but I much fear this will oblige one half the army to shoot the other.

Just as Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib have eroded America's moral authority, so the Bush administration's fiscal housekeeping has eroded our economic authority.

When I say that democracy has no place in the university, I mean that the university is, or at any rate was and ought still to be, a hierarchical institution, as befits an elite enterprise. The hierarchy is based upon scholarly and scientific accomplishment. The accomplishment makes for authority.

Die Götter der Mythen handelten mit einem Maß an Kleinlichkeit, Missgunst und oberflächlicher Moral, das selbst verglichen mit den verkommenen moralischen Maßstäben unserer eigenen Kultur in keinem Verhältnis zu der Macht steht, die sie ausübten.

You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You're dangerous and depraved, and you ought to be taken outside and shot!

What would they do to me, he asked in confidential tones, if I refused to fly them? We'd probably shoot you, ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen replied. We? Yossarian cried in surprise. What do you mean, we? Since when are you on their side? If you're going to be shot, whose side do you expect me to be on? ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen retorted