Quotes About Authority

Ciò che avviene, non avviene tanto perché alcuni vogliono che avvenga, quanto perché la massa degli uomini abdica alla sua volontà, lascia fare, lascia aggruppare i nodi che poi solo la spada potrà tagliare, lascia promulgare le leggi che poi solo la rivolta farà abrogare, lascia salire al potere gli uomini che poi solo un ammutinamento potrà rovesciare

As supreme commander, Eisenhower had to balance political and personal rivalries, while maintaining his authority within the alliance. He was well liked by Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and by General Sir Bernard Montgomery, the commander-in-chief of 21st Army Group, but neither rated him highly as a soldier.

Field Marshal Brooke once wrote in his diary: 'It is astonishing how petty and small men can be in connection with questions of command.

The ultimate paradox of the liberal Republic represented by its government was that it did not dare defend itself from its own army by giving weapons to the workers who had elected it.

My lord - the Duke of Lancaster does not wed his paramour, and one of common stock - how could the King countenance this? Well, he has, said John dryly. Richard at present would countenance far more than that to please his eldest uncle and annoy his youngest one.

we must use a firm hand.

Richard looked at the bow-tips that twinkled in the sun, the arrows being slowly notched and pointing down the field at him. He flung his head back and dug the golden spurs of knighthood into his horse's flanks. He galloped straight towards the revel lines and shouted, So now I shall be your leader, as you wished me to!

Under every rock lurks a politician.

Denn es sind immer die Unterlegenen, die Gleichheit und Recht suchen, während die Mächtigen sich darum nicht scheren.

He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader.

To lead an orchestra, you must turn your back on the crowd

He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled

he who had never learned to obey cannot be a good commander

Men do not become tyrants in order that they may not suffer cold.

Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.

The government is everywhere sovereign in the state, and the constitution is in fact the government.

it is all wrong that a person who is going to be deemed worthy of the office should himself solicit it... for no one who is not ambitious would ask to hold office.

It is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot; and as oligarchic when they are filled by election. -- Aristotle, Politics, Book IV

where the laws are not authoritative demagogues arise. For the populace becomes a monarch when it turns from many into a single composite, since the many are in authority not as particular persons but all together.

Hence, in a constitutional government the fighting-men have the supreme power, and those who possess arms are the citizens

Well-drawn laws should themselves define all the points they possibly can and leave as few as may be to the decision of the judges.

It is more proper that law should govern than any one of the citizens: upon the same principle, if it is advantageous to place the supreme power in some particular persons, they should be appointed to be only guardians, and the servants of the laws.

They are the ones who are responsible for the fact that decrees and not laws are authoritative, by referring everything to the populace. They end up becoming powerful by having the populace be in authority over everything, while they themselves have authority over the opinion of the populace, since the multitude is persuaded by them. Also

Aristotle states that only one thing could justify monarchy, and that was if the virtue of the king and his family were greater than the virtue of the rest of the citizens put together. Tactfully