Quotes About Authority

poner al Ejército firme, imponer el orden en este desastre, gobernar esta letrina, unos sopapos aquí y allá, los semanarios callados, el pueblo callado que es lo que le gusta, créame

That is why the truth is in the hands of unofficial folk.

I said, smiling very wide and droogie: 'Well, if it isn't fat stinking billygoat Billyboy in poison. How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap stinking chip-oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if you have any yarbles, you eunuch jelly, thou.' And then we started.

We're a government that believes in everybody having the illusion of free will.

People were often good, and did good things, such as the things that had been done to help after Vesuvius erupted, but as soon as those same people were given any authority or power, they abused it, or ignored the human consequences of their actions. And the people who ended up suffering most were always the women, because they had no authority or power

That's the art of leadership. To make sure that what shouldn't happen, doesn't happen.

A country that was able to suppress religion entirely and executed dissenters on the merest suspicion was unable to get welders to wear goggles. At

Obedience keeps the rules. Love knows when to break them.

The upperclassman hands over a third pail. "Throw it," commands Bastian. The night steams, the stars burn, the prisoner sways, the boys watch, the commandant tilts his head. Frederick pours the water onto the ground. "I will not.

Whoever wins, that's who decides the history.

We serve the Reich, Pfennig. It does not serve us.

and how could Neumann Two not have known, but of course he didn't, because that is how things are with Neumann Two, with everybody in this unit, in this army, in this world, they do as they're told, they get scared, they move about with only themselves in mind. Name me someone who does not.

Werner is beginning to see, approaching his sixteenth birthday, that what the führer really requires is boys. Great rows of them walking to the conveyor belt to climb on.

how could Neumann Two not have known, but of course he didn't, because that is how things are with Neumann Two, with everybody in this unit, in this army, in this world, they do as they're told, they get scared, they move about with only themselves in mind. Name me someone who does not.

The other boys crane their necks. Dr. Hauptmann's lips are pink and his eyelids are improbably thin. As though he is watching Werner even when he blinks. He says, "Make them all.

It would not have been possible for us to take power or to use it in the ways we have without the radio. —Joseph Goebbels

A portrait of the führer glowers over every classroom.

How can one country make another change its clocks? What if everybody refuses?

The vice minister's wife sits so upright that it seems as if her spine is hewn from oak.

Whoever wins, that's who decides the history. We act in our own self-interest.

You know the greatest lesson of history? It's that history is whatever the victors say it is. That's the lesson. Whoever wins, that's who decides the history. We act in our own self-

You know the greatest lesson of history? It's that history is whatever the victors say it is. That's the lesson. Whoever wins, that's who decides the history.

The lie rushes in to fill up the void left by the truth in retreat. When people lose their faith in God, for example, they do not believe in nothing. It is as Chesterton said, they will believe in anything, usually the nearest and biggest thing, the gross power of the state to solve their problems.

The Claudii had produced Consuls in every generation since the foundation of the Republic and over the centuries had built up a well-deserved reputation for high-handedness and violence. In one typical incident, a Claudius was leading a Roman fleet into battle. The sacred chickens refused to give a favorable omen by feeding on some corn that was put out for them. So Claudius had them flung into the sea, with the words: "If they won't eat, then let them drink.