Quotes About Authority

It is a strange thing, he thought, to be an old god. They worship you, and yet they mistreat you. If you do not want to do what they wish, they make you. It is not fair.

St. Ignatius was second in succession to St. Peter as bishop of Antioch. He was a student of Christ's most beloved apostle John. So what Ignatius wrote pulses with the authority Christ gave to Peter and the heart John could hear beating at the Last Supper.

Sur le mer, les hommes sont presque en dehors des lois; chez eux c'est le droit du plus fort, comme chez nous le droit du plus riche.

But all that power has culminated in gentleness. It is as if that is the point of power: to allow one to access the higher registers of gentleness.

The Presdt is an idiot.

My main concern is with the world order

Everybody says that I have a lot of power. But what does that power consist of?... Can I influence governments? I am beginning to be able to... (1995)

Now, like, I'm President. It would be pretty hard for some drug guy to come into the White House and start offering it up, you know? I bet if they did, I hope I would say, 'Hey, get lost. We don't want any of that.

I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well.

The nature of the presidency is that sometimes you don't choose which challenges come to your desk. You do decide how to respond.

It is absolutely necessary... for me to have persons that can think for me, as well as execute orders.

The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government.

Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. Thomas Paine

I was born a heretic. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. Susan B. Anthony, U.S. reformer and suffragist

Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

I can truly say I had rather be a Mount Vernon than to be attended at the Seat of Government by the Officers of State and the Representatives of every Power in Europe.

convincing those who are intrusted with the public administration that every valuable end of government is best answered by the enlightened confidence of the people, and by teaching the people themselves to know and to value their own rights; to discern and provide against invasions of them; to distinguish between oppression and the necessary exercise of lawful authority;

Experience has taught us, that men will not adopt and carry into execution measures best calculated for their own good, without the intervention of a coercive power.

The Church says that the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the Church. Ferdinand Magellan, Portuguese and Spanish explorer

Arbitrary power [tyranny, dictatorship] is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness [lawlessness, anarchy]. — George Washington

The change would be meaningful only if it was the doing of men of unassailable moral authority, speaking to down-to-earth interests on behalf of higher powers. What was needed was less to give complete freedom to the natural impulses of the merchants than to tie them to some dominant moral position.

Novità, signor Féron?». «I tedeschi hanno invaso l'Olanda». «La notizia è ufficiale? ». «Viene dal Belgio». «E Parigi?» «Parigi trasmette musica».

if you talk any more flummery to me, Frederica, I shall give you one of my—er—icy set-downs!"(Alverstoke)