Quotes About Authority

Look at your facts, look at your figures. I am a free American citizen, ain't I? I pay my taxes to support a good government, don't I? It's a contract between me and the government, ain't it? Well, then, by damn! if the authorities do not or will not afford me protection for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then my obligations are at an end; I withhold my taxes. I do—I do—I say I do. What?" He glared about him, seeking opposition.

Without men to do your killing, the woman will have power over you!" "She doesn't know that!

HIGH SCHOOL IS THE PENALTY FOR TRANSGRESSIONS YET TO BE SPECIFIED

Schools train you to be ignorant with style [...] they prepare you to be a usable victim for a military industrial complex that needs manpower. As long as you're just smart enough to do a job and just dumb enough to swallow what they feed you, you're going to be alright [...] So I believe that schools mechanically and very specifically try and breed out any hint of creative thought in the kids that are coming up.

behind each breakaway movement is a breakaway demagogue who will set up his breakaway demagogue government.

who are the brain police?

In a lot of ways Facebook is more like a government than a traditional company. We have this large community of people, and more than other technology companies we're really setting policies.

Light rain was falling, and a heavy prefrontal fog was beginning to move in as the Hardys arrived at the field. They walked to the tower and climbed the winding steps to the top. As they entered the control room, Lou Diamond, the tower chief, waved a greeting. A short, stocky, good-natured man, with crew-cut red hair, he nevertheless had an air of authority.

Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.

If I didn't have my parents to think about I'd have given in my notice a long time ago, I'd have gone up to the boss and told him just what I think, tell him everything I would, let him know just what I feel. He'd fall right off his desk! And it's a funny sort of business to be sitting up there at your desk, talking down at your subordinates from up there, especially when you have to go right up close because the boss is hard of hearing.

all [the authorities] did was to guard the distant and invisible interests of distant and invisible masters

Many questions were troubling the explorer, but at the sight of the prisoner he asked only: Does he know his sentence? No, said the officer, eager to go on with his exposition, but the explorer interrupted him: He doesn't know the sentence that has been passed on him? No, said the officer again, pausing a moment as if to let the explorer elaborate his question, and then said: There would be no point in telling him. He'll learn it on his body.

How are we to avoid those in office becoming deeply corrupt when everything is devoid of meaning?

I would never have named them in the first place as they are not the ones I hold responsible. It's the organization that's to blame, the high officials are the ones to blame.

Whatever he may seem to us, he is yet a servant of the Law; that is, he belongs to the Law and as such is set beyond human judgment.

Don't look at him! he snapped, without noticing how odd it was to speak to free men in this way

The man from the country has not expected such difficulties; the law, he thinks, should be accessible to everyone and at all times; but as he now takes a closer look at the doorkeeper in his fur coat, at his large pointed nose, his long, sparse, black Tartar beard, he decides that it is better, after all, to wait until he receives permission to enter.

Even years afterward I suffered from the tormenting fancy that the huge man, my father, the ultimate authority, would come almost for no reason at all and take me out of bed in the night and carry me out onto the pavlatche, and that consequently I meant absolutely nothing as far as he was concerned.

The chains that cuff humanity are made of office paper

It is only our conception of time that makes us call the Last Judgment by this name. It is, in fact, a kind of martial law.

Official decisions are as elusive as young girls.

Where was the judge he'd never seen? Where was the high court he had never reached?

They don't make mistakes. Our authorities, as far as I am aware - and I know only the lowest ranks - don't actually look for guilt in the population, but are, as the law says, drawn towards guilt and must send us guards out. That's the law. Where would there be a mistake? 'I don't know this law', said K. 'That's your problem,' said the guard. 'It probably only exists in your minds', said K.

He certainly goes into the offices, but are the offices really the castle? And even if the castle does have offices, are they the offices which Barnabas is allowed to enter?