Quotes About Authority

I don't like the idea of your being a governess at the beck and call of tyrannical mother's and their tiresome brats.

But then, how do you know?' 'Because I am Hercule Poirot! I do not need to be told.

And the Minister strode rapidly away.

Oh, doctors!" Inspector Slack looked contemptuous. "If you're going to believe doctors. Take out all your teeth—that's what they do nowadays—and then say they're very sorry, but all the time it was appendicitis. Doctors!

Put not your trust in princes or politicians, as the saying goes.

Of course she did not like the police," said Marcus. "Nobody likes the police. I do not like the police. But I have to stand well with them because of my hotel.

Flora is like all these young girls nowadays, with no veneration for their betters and thinking they know best on every subject under the sun,

a competent-looking middle-aged man. He spoke briskly and with decision.

I thought the Chief Constable was going to have apoplexy.

That's your business. It's the business of the police. What do we pay rates and taxes for, I should like to know?" One wonders how many times that query is uttered in a year!

Who are you? You don't belong to the police?" "I am better than the police," said Poirot. He said it without conscious arrogance. It was, to him, a simple statement of fact.

Not that Miss Bulstrode would have allowed herself to be commanded if she had not wished to do so.

you've been listening to the doctors. Never should. What do they know? Nothing at all--or just enough to make them dangerous.

Cuántas veces no habré oído decir a una mujer inteligente a más no poder: "Edgardo dice...", como quien cita a una autoridad incontrovertible. Y eso cuando todo el mundo sabe que Edgardo es un perfecto idiota.

My father, Professor Beddingfeld, was one of England's greatest living authorities on Primitive Man. He really was a genius—everyone admits that. His mind dwelt in Palaeolithic times, and the inconvenience of life for him was that his body inhabited the modern world. Papa did not care for modern man—even Neolithic Man he despised as a mere herder of cattle, and he did not rise to enthusiasm until he reached the Mousterian period.

It was old Scrymgour. Somebody looked into his church one day. He was leaning out of the pulpit and preaching fervently to a couple of old charwomen. He was shaking his finger at them and saying, 'Aha! I know what you are thinking. You think that the Great Ahasuerus of the First Lesson was Artaxerxes the Second. But he wasn't!' And then with enormous triumph, 'He was Artaxerxes the Third.

I remember the school janitors who supervised the schoolyard. Cold and cunning, they were the supreme arbiters and would instill fear in everyone. If a child got out of control, they would tie him up and give him ten lashes. After receiving his punishment, the child had to kiss the hand of the one who had lashed him, say, "As you command, Father," and then leave the area. This ritual was repeated several times a week.

The unintelligent have no rights to own anything let alone their own thoughts which they have no choice but to hand over to anyone. Chaos almost certainly ensues in such a case

It is false to suppose that so long as Scripture and doctrine are preserved, disciplinary and liturgical tradition can safely be modernised at will.

I'm my own boss and my boss is a total ass.

A movie director is like a front-line commanding officer. He needs a thorough knowledge of every branch of the service, and if he doesn't command each division, he cannot command the whole.

You can get a lot farther with a kind word and a gun than a kind word alone.

You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot farther with a smile and a gun.

A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government.