Quotes About Authority

All Church power is, therefore, properly ministerial and administrative. Everything is to be done in the name of Christ, and in accordance with his directions.

The Church, however, is a self-governing society, distinct from the State, having its officers and laws, and, therefore, an administrative government of its own.

Admitting, however, for the sake of argument, that I am prime and sole minister in this country, am I, therefore, prime and sole minister of all Europe? Am I answerable for the conduct of other countries as well as for that of my own?

It is amazing to think after all that has happened in this country in the last few years, the last few decades, that so many people have this blind faith that government is our friend and therefore, so we don't need protections against it.

When Theresa May asked me to resolve policy disagreements between ministers, my power to do that depended on the fact that I was acting on her behalf with her delegated authority.

You've got to be a thermostat rather than a thermometer. A thermostat shapes the climate of opinion; a thermometer just reflects it.

My thesis is that government is not, in fact, broken. It's just listening to the wrong people, and it's listening to all of this quiet influence. So it's a very robust operation that operates kind of under the surface.

They say you don't want to know how sausage is made. Book coverage is like sausage in that way: better not to know exactly how the gatekeepers of mainstream media choose which books to crown as must-reads each season - just swallow it down with a cold beer and call it a night.

In America, they say, you can take a horse to the pond, but you can't make him drink. My way is different. I only take the horse to the pond to make him drink. If he doesn't, I'll cut his head off.

Don't name it, as they say, because instantly you offer it to this peculiar authority.

The Chinese are brought up to believe that you should be silent in class. The teacher speaks, and you just listen and absorb what they say.

Radio 1 doesn't exist to me. I don't judge my success by anything they say.

They say I am a regulator and I think it is just an effort not to comply with the decree. I do not do anything except what the decree requires me to do.

They say that our sovereign is above his laws to his pleasure, and he may make it and break it as he pleases, without any distinction. The contrary is true, or else he should not have sworn to keep it.

Schools insist that everything is under their purview - what your kids eat, what they believe, what they say on the playground.

Sometimes I feel like hitting somebody. You look at the refs and they say, 'We'll take care of it.' I think, 'Yeah? You won't take care of it the way I'd like to take care of it.'

You don't actually have control of the position people want you to be in. If they say, 'You king of the blacks,' you're king of the blacks - whether you like it or not.

The great thieves lead away the little thief.

When cutting staff at the Pentagon, don't eliminate the thin layer that assures civilian control.

The only thing I command is respect.

All things are subject to decay and when fate summons, monarchs must obey.

Americans have a special horror of giving up control, of letting things happen in their own way without interference.

I was a truant. And if you're a truant in New York City, the truant officer gets after you, and then you get into the courts, and then things happen which they really shouldn't. But I ended up in a very sweet reform school. It's the place you go to if you've got a really kind judge.

We have no George Pattons anymore. We have no Ulysses S. Grants. We have none of the swashbuckling generals that actually made things happen.