Quotes About Authority

Every function superadded to those already exercised by the government causes its influence over hopes and fears to be more widely diffused, and converts, more and more, the active and ambitious part of the public into hangers-on of the government, or of some party which aim, at becoming the government.

The yoke is naturally and necessarily humiliating to all persons, except the one who is on the throne, together with, at most, the one who expects to succeed to it.

The aim, therefore, of patriots, was to set limits to the power which the ruler should be suffered to exercise over the community; and this limitation was what they meant by liberty.

All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.

to secure as much of the advantages of centralised power and intelligence, as can be had without turning into governmental channels too great a proportion of the general activity, is one of the most difficult and complicated questions in the art of government.

There is no greater assumption of infallibility in forbidding the propagation of error, than in any other thing which is done by public authority on its own judgment and responsibility.

Every one knows how absurd it would be to infer from what a man is or does when in a private station, that he will be and do exactly the like when a despot on a throne; where the bad parts of his human nature, instead of being restrained and kept in subordination by every circumstance of his life and by every person surrounding him, are courted by all persons, and ministered to by all circumstances.

But was there ever any domination which did not appear natural to those who possessed it?

All errors which he is likely to commit against advice and warning, are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to what they deem his good.

Was there ever any domination which did not appear natural to those who possessed it?... the law of force itself, to those who could not plead any other, has always seemed the most natural of all grounds for the exercise of authority.

majority, or those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority: the people, consequently, may desire to oppress a part of their number; and precautions are as much needed against this, as against any other abuse of power.

aim, therefore, of patriots, was to set limits to the power which the ruler should be suffered to exercise over the community; and this limitation was what they meant by liberty.

the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.

State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes, will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished;

Ruler of the Universe; and the popular, which he characteristically calls also the moral sanction, operating through the pains and pleasures arising from the favour or disfavour of our fellow-creatures.[*]

The "people" who exercise the power, are not always the same people with those over whom it is exercised; and the "self-government" spoken of, is not the government of each by himself, but of each by all the rest.

Defining marriage is a power that should be left to the states. Moreover, no state should be forced to recognize a marriage that is not within its own laws, Constitution, and legal precedents.

When religion becomes organised, man ceases to be free. It is not God that is worshipped but the group or authority that claims to speak in His name. Sin becomes disobedience to authority and not violation of integrity.

Shrewdly and deliberately, Julius orchestrated every aspect of his building campaigns, tomb project, paintings, and ceremonial pageantry to convey the message that he was born to be-and had rightly assumed his God-given role as-his Christian Caesar.

He found Washington at once august and disgusting.

Our form of compulsory schooling is an invention of the State of Massachusetts around 1850. It was resisted — sometimes with guns — by an estimated eighty percent of the Massachusetts population, the last outpost in Barnstable on Cape Cod not surrendering its children until the 1880s, when the area was seized by militia and children marched to school under guard.

Good students wait for a teacher to tell them what to do. This is the most important lesson of them all: we must wait for other people, better trained than ourselves, to make the meanings of our lives. The expert makes all the important choices; only I, the teacher, can determine what my kids must study, or rather, only the people who pay me can make those decisions, which I then enforce.

What is currently under discussion in our national hysteria about failing academic performance misses the point. Schools teach exactly what they are intended to teach and they do it well: how to be a good Egyptian and remain in your place in the pyramid.

The truth is that schools don't really teach anything except how to obey orders.