Quotes About Authority

You who are in power have only the means that money produces—we who are in expectation, have those which devotion prompts.

El señor Morrel comprendió que nada podía intentarse: un comisario con su faja no es ya un hombre, es la estatua de la ley, fría, sorda, muda.

Sunteti monsenior pentru servitorii dumneavoastra, pentru jurnalisti sunteti domn, iar pentru mandatarii dumneavoastar sunteti cetatean. Sunt nuante foarte potrivite pentru un guvern constitutional.

Pentru Dumnezeu, doamn?! r?spunse procurorul regal cu o t?rie care nu era lipsit? de usc?ciune; pentru Dumnezeu, nu-mi cereÈ›i graÈ›ie pentru vinovat. Ce sunt eu? Legea. Are ochi legea s? vad? tristeÈ›ea dumneavoastr?? Are urechi legea s? aud? glasul dumneavoastr? blând? Nu, doamn?, legea porunceÈ™te, iar când legea a poruncit, loveÈ™te.

A man's admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.

Rulers who destroy men's freedom commonly begin by trying to retain its forms. ... They cherish the illusion that they can combine the prerogatives of absolute power with the moral authority that comes from popular assent.

One's love for despotism is in exact proportion to one's contempt for one's country.

The prestige of royal power has evaporated, but the majesty of the law has failed to take its place. People nowadays despise authority yet still fear it, and fear extracts from them more than they previously gave out of respect and love.

He who in given cases consents to obey his fellows with servility, and who submits his will, and even his thoughts, to their control, how can he pretend that he wishes to be free?

The whole people contracts the habits and tastes of the magistrate.

It would seem that if despotism were to be established among the democratic nations of our days, it might assume a different character; it would be more extensive and more mild; it would degrade men without tormenting them.

Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power, or debased by the habit of obedience; but by the exercise of a power which they believe to be illegitimate, and by obedience to a rule which they consider to be usurped and oppressive.

Nothing is more repugnant to the human mind in an age of equality than the idea of subjection to forms.

The language in which thought is embodied is the mere carcass of the thought, and not the idea itself; tribunals may condemn the form, but the sense and spirit of the work is too subtle for their authority.

It had been supposed, until our time, that despotism was odious, under whatever form it appeared. But it is a discovery of modern days that there are such things as legitimate tyranny and holy injustice, provided they are exercised in the name of the people.

Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power or debased by the habit of obedience, but by the exercise of a power which they believe to be illegal and by obedience to a rule which they consider to be usurped and oppressive.

If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the unlimited authority of the majority, which may at some future time urge the minorities to desperation, and oblige them to have recourse to physical force. Anarchy will then be the result, but it will have been brought about by despotism.

The tyranny of the executive power will come in its turn, but at a more distant period.

In the township, as well as everywhere else, the people is the only source of power; but in no stage of government does the body of citizens exercise a more immediate influence.

In other words, the government of the democracy is the only one under which the power which lays on taxes escapes the payment of them.

The jury, which is the most energetic means to make the people rule, is also the most effective means to teach them to rule.

The deeper we penetrate into the working of these parties, the more do we perceive that the object of the one is to limit, and that of the other to extend, the popular authority.

A certain degree of power must be granted to public officers, for they would be of no use without it. But the ostensible semblance of authority is by no means indispensable to the conduct of affairs, and it is needlessly offensive to the susceptibility of the public.

What good is it to me to have an authority always ready to see to the tranquil enjoyment of my pleasures, to brush away all dangers from my path without my having to think about them, if such an authority, as well as removing thorns from under my feet, is also the absolute master of my freedom or if it so takes over all activity and life that around it all must languish when it languishes, sleep when it sleeps and perish when it perishes.