Quotes About Authority

I hate that which we have decided to call realism, even though I have been made one of its high priests.

We have all been told that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I have long thought this is nonsense.

Like George Sand, the feminism of the present day asserts the right of free thought against the creed of authority in every field; the solidarity of mankind and the cause of peace against the patriotism of militarism; social reform against the existing relations of society.

On the other hand, when I give it closer thought, I realize I'm not enough of a dictator to conduct an orchestra because it requires a pretty awful person. When you read these biographies of famous conductors, they are all awful people who fail in their private relationships.

All government is a mess. Democracy is always messy. It's meant to be messy because smooth, thoughtful, precise, effective government leads to dictatorship. Don't get me wrong, dictatorship is fine - as long as I'm the dictator. But if you're not the dictator, not so good.

Next thing you know they'll take your thoughts away.

Having a book censored means something. It means you have deeply offended one or more people who felt they needed to protect unsuspecting readers from your inflammatory words, thoughts, and images.

Tyrannies not only want to control your mind and thoughts but your flesh as well.

Once you give an NFL player permission to have thoughts, you invite all kinds of mischief.

If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.

The duties of the ruler are like those of the helmsman of a great ship. From his lofty position, he makes slight movements with his hands, and the ship, of itself, follows his desires and moves. This is the way whereby the one may control the ten thousand and by quiescence may regulate activity.

No state, no government exists. What does in fact exist is a man, or a few men, in power over many men.

Being absolute, and maintained by police force, a Government monopoly need not please its customers.

So long as any large group of persons, anywhere on this earth, believe the ancient superstition that some Authority is responsible for their welfare, they will set up some image of that Authority and try to obey it. And the result will be poverty and war.

The Old World belief is this: Individuals are cells in a greater organism. All men are naturally dependent, obedient, controlled by Authority. (Communists, Fascists and Nazis say this in a cliché, "The individual is nothing.") Government is Authority, controlling the masses and responsible for their welfare. Therefore, the stronger the Government, the better for the masses. Liberty

When your family is twice as weird as normal, you have to be twice as polite to authority, because authority hates weird.

the Stalinist credo: "a respect for obedience, hierarchy and institutionalized authority; a belief in reason, optimism and progress; recognition of a possible transformation of nature, society, and human beings; and an acceptance of the necessity of violence.

Does one refuse to ride with an Emperor?' 'If one is wise, one does not.

it's time to stop reaching out to ministers. They're just not up to the task, and they don't know what they're talking about. I think this guy made that abundantly clear.

There was nothing so dangerous to a king or an emperor as a book. Yes, a great library—a library as magnificent as this one—was a dangerous arsenal, one that kings and emperors feared more than the greatest army or magazine.

Quite amazing how determined kings and emperors have been to destroy books. But civilization is built on such desecrations, is it not? Justinian the Great burned all of the Greek scrolls in Constantinople after he codified the Roman law and drove the Ostrogoths from Italy. And Shih Huang Ti, the first Emperor of China, the man who unified the five kingdoms and built the Great Wall, decreed that every book written before he was born should be destroyed.

No more guns for you.

He was half a politician, and like most of his kind he was an insecure man.

His eyes held the confident vacancy that comes from the exercise of other people's power.