Quotes About Authority

Mr. Severe's place was filled by a Mr. Hopkins. He was a very different man. He was less cruel, less profane, and made less noise, than Mr. Severe. His course was characterized by no extraordinary demonstrations of cruelty. He whipped, but seemed to take no pleasure in it. He was called by the slaves a good overseer.

And the only explanation I can now think of does not entirely satisfy me; but such as it is, I will give it. Mr. Covey enjoyed the most unbounded reputation for being a first-rate overseer and negro-breaker. It was of considerable importance to him. That reputation was at stake; and had he sent me—a boy about sixteen years old—to the public whipping-post, his reputation would have been lost; so, to save his reputation, he suffered me to go unpunished.

Everybody in the South seemed to want the privilege of whipping somebody else.

unless the whole structure of the government is changed from a government by States to something like a despotic central government, with power to control even the municipal regulations of States, and to make them conform to its own despotic will.

All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.

Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen.

Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.

He who obeys, does not listen to himself!

He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature of living creatures.

But thus I counsel you, my friends: Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful. They are people of a low sort and stock; the hangmen and the bloodhound look out of their faces. Mistrust all who talk much of their justice! Verily, their souls lack more than honey. And when they call themselves the good and the just, do not forget that they would be pharisees, if only they had—power.

Are you a slave? Then you cannot be a friend. Are you a tyrant? Then you cannot have friends.

State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies; and this lie slips from its mouth: 'I, the state, am the people.

Here the spirit becomes a lion who would conquer his freedom and be master… Who is the great dragon whom the spirit will no longer call lord and go? 'Thou shalt' is the name of the great dragon. But the spirit of the lion says, 'I will.

T]he mob is the most ruthless of tyrants;

When thou goest to woman, take thy whip.

They fear their higher self, because when it speaks, it speaks demandingly.

The state lieth in all languages of good and evil; and whatever it saith it lieth; and whatever it hath it hath stolen.

Behold the good and just! Whom do they hate most? The man who breaks their tables of values, the breaker, the lawbreaker:- yet he is the creator.

Not necessity, not desire - no, the love of power is the demon of men.

In order that there may be institutions, there must be a kind of will, instinct, or imperative, which is anti-liberal to the point of malice: the will to tradition, to authority, to responsibility for centuries to come, to the solidarity of chains of generations, forward and backward ad infinitum.

Honor to the government, and obedience, and also to the crooked government! So desires good sleep. How can I help it, if power likes to walk on crooked legs?

Knowest thou not who is most needed by all? He who commandeth great things. To execute great things is difficult: but the more difficult task is to command great things.

He who is a firstling is ever sacrificed.

The Free Man is a Warrior. I do not believe in any Rights that are not supported by the power required to enforce them.