Quotes About Authority

Any injury we do to a man must be such that we need not fear his vengeance.

If you accept any position of authority you have to know when to break or circumvent a rule. It's the knowing when that's important.

If my religion is true, it will stand up to all my questioning; there is no need to fear. But if it is not true, if it is man imposing strictures on God (as did the men of the Christian establishment of Galileo's day), then I want to be open to God, not to what man says about God.

You might call IT the Boss." Then Charles Wallace giggled, a giggle that was the most sinister sound Meg had ever heard. "IT sometimes calls ITself the Happiest Sadist.

Only obedience,' he said aloud to the room, as though to convince himself, 'is perfect freedom.

Most parents probably deserve to be punished for one reason or another. Mostly their children don't act on it.

It occurred to me that kids could easily take over the world. They could hack in and use our own technology against us. Or just decide to stop helping us figure it out to begin with. Either way, we adults would be relegated to a life of servitude and there would be weekly keggers in the White House rose garden. The only reason this hasn't already happened is that the kids haven't figured it out yet. When

It occurred to me that kids could easily take over the world. They could hack in and use our own technology against us. Or just decide to stop helping us figure it out to begin with. Either way, we adults would be relegated to a life of servitude and there would be weekly keggers in the White House rose garden. The only reason this hasn't already happened is that the kids haven't figured it out yet. When they buy a clue, it's gonna suck to be a grown-up.

Newton's language choices were Orwellian: restraining others was "a privilege"; having no freedom of speech, movement, or activity was "a respite.

legitimacy is based on three things. First of all, the people who are asked to obey authority have to feel like they have a voice--that if they speak up, they will be heard. Second, the law has to be predictable. There has to be a reasonable expectation that the rules tomorrow are going to be roughly the same as the rules today. And third, the authority has to be fair. It can't treat one group differently from another.

mediocre people find their way into positions of authority...because when it comes to even the most important positions, our selection decisions are a good deal less rational than we think.

When people in authority want the rest of us to behave, it matters—first and foremost—how they behave.

The excessive use of force creates legitimacy problems, and force without legitimacy leads to defiance, not submission.

But in the end it comes down to a matter of respect, and the simplest way that respect is communicated is through tone of voice, and the most corsive tone of voice that a doctor can assume is a dominant tone. 

This is called the "principle of legitimacy," and legitimacy is based on three things. First of all, the people who are asked to obey authority have to feel like they have a voice—that if they speak up, they will be heard. Second, the law has to be predictable. There has to be a reasonable expectation that the rules tomorrow are going to be roughly the same as the rules today. And third, the authority has to be fair. It can't treat one group differently from another.

People at the top are self-conscious about what they say (and rightfully so) because they have position and privilege to protect — and self-consciousness is the enemy of "interestingness.

It has been said that most revolutions are not caused by revolutionaries in the first place, but by the stupidity and brutality of governments

power has an important limitation. It has to be seen as legitimate, or else its use has the opposite of its intended effect.

But what actually matters are the hundreds of small things that the powerful do—or don't do—to establish their legitimacy, like sleeping in the bed of an innocent man you just shot accidentally and scattering your belongings around his house.

When people in authority want the rest of us to behave, it matters—first and foremost—how they behave. This is called the "principle

What Jaffe proved was that the powerful have to worry about how others think of them-that those who give orders are acutely vulnerable to the opinions of those whom they are ordering about.

The powerful and the strong are not always what they seem.

To become a success at what they did, they had to shed some part of their own identity, because the deep respect for authority that runs throughout Korean culture simply does not work in the cockpit.

And when the law is applied in the absence of legitimacy, it does not produce obedience. It produces the opposite. It leads to backlash.6