Quotes About Authority

The people must learn how well I govern them. How would they know if we didn't tell them?

All rebellions are ordinary and an ultimate bore. They are copied out of the same pattern, one much like another. The driving force is adrenalin addiction and the desire to gain personal power. All rebels are closet aristocrats. That's why I can convert them so easily. Why

People aren't concerned with love; it's too disordered. They prefer despotism. Too much freedom breeds chaos. We can't have that, can we? And how do you make despotism lovable?

One who rules assumes irrevocable responsibility for the ruled. You are a husbandman. This demands, at times, a selfless act of love which may only be amusing to those you rule.

It is not always the majestic concerns of Imperial ministers which dictate the course of history, nor is it necessarily the pontifications of priests which move the hands of God.

The tribal commander must lose no face among those who should obey him. Paul

Muad'Dib: "If a child, an untrained person, an ignorant person, or an insane person incites trouble, it is the fault of authority for not predicting and preventing that trouble." O.C.

In all Things you must appear important. No minor decisions pass through your hands unless they are quiet acts called 'Favors' done for people whose loyalty can be earned.

The more control, the more that requires control. This is the road to chaos. — PanSpechi aphorism

The Lord Leto says that when it was denied an external enemy, the all-male army always turned against its own population. Always.

He aspires to rule my Barony, yet he cannot rule himself.

Umman Kudu: scissors-line of jaw muscles, chin like a boot toe - a man to be trusted because the captain's vices were known.

Governments can be useful to the governed only so long as inherent tendencies toward tyranny are restrained.

Governments can be useful to the governed only so long as inherent tendencies toward tyranny are restrained...be exceedingly careful about the powers you delegate to any government.

Who owns this river passage? This verdant valley? This peninsula? This planet? None of us.

When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles. —WORDS OF AN ANCIENT PHILOSOPHER

A world is supported by four things…." She held up four big-knuckled fingers. "…the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the righteous and the valor of the brave. But all of these are as nothing…." She closed her fingers into a fist. "…without a ruler who knows the art of ruling. Make that

It was easy to believe that warning in this place. One word from Leto and these women would tear an offender to pieces. They would not question. They would act. Idaho began to feel a new appreciation of these women as an army. Personal peril would not stop them. They served God!

You have no position from which to negotiate. Certain things will be done. You will comply willingly, your compliance will be forced, or we will act without you.

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted.

We should grant power over our affairs only to those reluctant to hold it, and only under conditions that increase that reluctance.

You understand? One uses power by grasping it lightly. To grasp too strongly is to be taken over by power, and thus to become its victim.

The problem with leadership is that leaders are human beings. And when they make mistakes, their mistakes are amplified by the numbers who follow without question.

What is justice? Two forces collide. Each may have the right in his own sphere. And here's where an Emperor commands orderly solutions. Those collisions he cannot prevent—he solves." "How?" "In the simplest way: he decides." "Keeping his friends and destroying his enemies.