Quotes About Authority

Magistratum legem esse loquentem, legem autem mutum magistratum

There were a lot of gods. Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything.

Nobody is any authority on the fucks other people give

When power is scarce, a little of it is tempting.

It's his word against the Commander's, unless he wants to head a posse. Kick in the door, and what did I tell you? Caught in the act, sinfully Scrabbling. Quick, eat those words.

Messy love is better than none, I guess. I am no authority on sane living.

underlings given sudden power frequently become the worst abusers of it.

There is indeed something delightful about being able to combine obedience and disobedience in the same act.

They should have never given us uniforms if they didn't want us to be an army.

I learned about religion the way most children learned about sex, [in the schoolyard]. . . . They terrified me by telling me there was a dead man in the sky watching everything I did and I retaliated by explaining where babies came from. Some of their mothers phoned mine to complain, though I think I was more upset than they were: they didn't believe me but I believed them.

Knowledge is power only as long as you keep your mouth shut.

Perhaps he's reached that state of intoxication which power is said to inspire, the state in which you believe you are indispensable and can therefore do anything, absolutely anything you feel like, anything at all.

She who pays the undertaker calls the tune.

Also she went in for culture, which gave her a certain moral authority. It wouldn't now; but people believed, then, that culture could make you better - a better person. They believed it could uplift you, or the women believed it. They hadn't yet seen Hitler at the opera house.

Forced to chose between one irascible tyrant and another, Laura had chosen the one which was greater, and also further away.

I always made dough men, I never made dough women, because after they were baked I would eat them, and that made me feel I had a secret power over men. It was becoming clear to me that, despite the urges Aunt Vidala said I aroused in them, I had no power over them otherwise.

Nobody has any authority on the fucks that other people give.

knowledge is power, especially discreditable knowledge.

Nobody is any authority of the fucks other people give.

the best and most cost-effective way to control women for reproductive and other purposes was through women themselves. For this there were many historical precedents; in fact, no empire imposed by force or otherwise has ever been without this feature: control of the indigenous by members of their own group.

Where I am is not a prison but a privilege, as Aunt Lydia said, who is in love with either/or.

That was the original idea, but once you've got a controlled population with a wall around it and no oversight, you can do anything you want.

Our big mistake was teaching them to read. We won't make that mistake again.

To institute an effective totalitarian system or indeed any system at all you must offer some benefits and freedoms, at least to a privileged few, in return for those you remove.