Quotes About Authority

I may question the infallibility of the teachers, but I hope that I shall not therefore be accused of doubt as to the thing to be taught.

People seem to think that if a man is a Member of Parliament he may do what he pleases. ... Being in Parliament used to be something when I was young, but it won't make a make a gentleman now-a-days. It seems to me that none but brewers, and tallow-chandlers, and lawyers go into Parliament now.

Here would be a rock! And such a handsome man as he was, too, — not exactly a Corsair, as he was great in authority over the London police, — but a powerful, fine fellow, who would know what to do with swords and pistols as well as any Corsair; — and one, too, no doubt, who would understand poetry! Any such dream, however, was altogether unavailing, as the major had a wife at home and seven children.

He must either be known as a stern, hard-hearted parent, utterly indifferent to his child's feelings, using with tyranny the power over her which came to him only from her sense of filial duty, — or else he must give up his own judgment, and yield to her in a matter as to which he believed that such yielding would be most pernicious to her own interests

We know that power does corrupt, and that we cannot trust kings to have loving hearts, and clear intellects, and noble instincts

Government! Well; I suppose there must be government. But the less of it the better. I'm not against government; — nor yet against laws, Mr. Finn; though the less of them, too, the better

But a Prime Minister cannot escape till he has succeeded in finding a successor; and though the successor be found and consents to make an attempt, the old unfortunate cannot be allowed to go free when that attempt is shown to be a failure. He has not absolutely given up the keys of his boxes, and no one will take them from him. Even a sovereign can abdicate; but the Prime Minister of a constitutional government is in bonds.

Is a woman like a head of cattle, that she can be fastened in her crib by force? I will never live with him though all the judges of the land should decide that I must do so.

CHAPTER LXV THE NEW MINISTER

But there was no coaxing Roger over now, or indeed ever: he was a wilful, headstrong, masterful man; a tyrant always though never a cruel one; and accustomed to rule his wife and household as despotically as he did his gangs of workmen. Such men it is not easy to coax over.

Let the Gresham or the Daubeny of the day be ever so sure that the reins of the State chariot must come into his hands, he should not visibly prepare himself for the seat on the box till he has actually been summoned to place himself there

She had wished to be imprudent when she was young; but her friends had been too strong for her. She had been reduced, and kept in order, and made to run in a groove, — and was now, when she sat looking at her little boy with his bold face, almost inclined to think that the world was right, and that grooves were best. But if she had been controlled when she was young, so ought the Duke to be controlled now that he was old.

People seen by the mind are exactly different to things seen by the eye. They grow smaller and smaller as you come nearer down to them, whereas things become bigger. I remember when I used to think that members of the Cabinet were almost gods, and now they seem to be no bigger than the shoeblacks, — only less picturesque.

I remember dear old Lord Brock telling me how much more difficult it was to find a good coachman than a good Secretary of State.

Do something on your own hook. You men in Parliament are so much like sheep! If one jumps at a gap, all go after him, — and then you are penned into lobbies, and then you are fed, and then you are fleeced. I wish I were in Parliament. I'd get up in the middle and make such a speech. You all seem to me to be so much afraid of one another that you don't quite dare to speak out.

Not so Mrs. Proudie. This lady is habitually authoritative to all, but to her poor husband she is despotic. Successful as has been his career in the eyes of the world, it would seem that in the eyes of his wife he is never right. All hope of defending himself has long passed from him; indeed he rarely even attempts self-justification, and is aware that submission produces the nearest approach to peace which his own house can ever attain.

Perhaps she felt that if the two were engaged, it might be well to keep the lovers separated for awhile, lest they should quarrel before the engagement should have been so confirmed by the authority of friends as to be beyond the power of easy annihilation.

is coming to that, that there will be no life left anywhere in the country. No one is any longer fit to rule himself, or those belonging to him. The Government is to find us all in everything, and the press is to find the Government.

Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri;

Officially the soldiery had to wait for the Riot Act to be read by a local authority, according to the rules of the time.

A Bill of Rights that means what the majority wants it to mean is worthless.

Tyrannies have long lists of rights. What they do not have is structural restraints on the power of government.

Truth serves only its slaves.

The more a man departs from lawful authority, that is, authority normally constituted, whether by God or by the nature of things, the more he is obliged to fall back into arbitrary claims to authority.