Quotes About Authority

The failure to endow Treasury and the Fed with the authority to deal with the insolvency of a nonbank financial institution was the single most important policy failure of the crisis.

Something about all that power seemed to make the assholes who wielded it believe they were invulnerable.

A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have.

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away

Mystery and terror are the bulwarks of tyranny.

Ox, what occupation is most closely linked to insanity?' 'Emperor,' I said promptly.

A fool will study for twenty or thirty years and learn how to do something, but a wise man will study for twenty or thirty minutes and become an expert. In this world, it isn't ability that counts, but authority.

He wondered if all kids-if normal kids-had this moment of epiphany, this sudden sensation of understanding that their parents weren't gods, weren't even kings. They were just people.

they propound the first principle of totalitarianism: that the State is competent to do all things and is limited in what it actually does only by the will of those who control the State. It is clear that this view is in direct conflict with the Constitution which is an instrument, above all, for limiting the functions of government, and which is as binding today as when it was written.

State power, considered in the abstract, need not restrict freedom: but absolute state power always does. The legitimate functions of government are actually conducive to freedom.

There is no more effective way to destroy the leadership potential of young officers and noncommissioned officers than to deny them opportunities to make decisions appropriate for their assignments.

Thus, from cradle to grave, having control over one's life matters.

The whole system of society tells you what to do.

Another possibility is to use the Captain

When Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603) found out who had published a nasty pamphlet about her, she had the authors' right hands cut off. Now there's an idea! (Or not.) For the moment, let's say that a Mean Girl is treating you

Esto parece haber dado a entender la divina escriptura en los proverbios de Salomón: Rex, qui sedet in solio judicii, dissipat omne malum in tuitu suo [El Rey que está sentado en el solio del juicio disipa todo mal con su mirada]. Porque

Sweet Truth is a queen proud and mighty-- Her throne is in heaven above.

Those who wish to seek out the cause of miracles and to understand the things of nature as philosophers, and not to stare at them in astonishment like fools, are soon considered heretical and impious, and proclaimed as such by those whom the mob adores as the interpreters of nature and the gods. For these men know that, once ignorance is put aside, that wonderment would be taken away, which is the only means by which their authority is preserved.

Ambition is the immoderate desire for power.

Laws which prescribe what everyone must believe, and forbid men to say or write anything against this or that opinion, are often passed to gratify, or rather to appease the anger of those who cannot abide independent minds.

Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens. They who can treat secretly of the affairs of a nation have it absolutely under their authority; and as they plot against the enemy in time of war, so do they against the citizens in time of peace.

the ultimate aim of government is not to rule, or restrain by fear, nor to exact obedience, but to free every man from fear that he may live in all possible security... In fact the true aim of government is liberty.

The purpose of the state is really freedom.

Der Endzweck des Staates ist [...] im Grund die Freiheit.