Quotes About Authority

Indeed, no sultan or Muslim ruler in Islamic history ever kneeled to ask forgiveness before a grand mufti in the way that Henry IV was forced to do before the pope in 1077 in Canossa for challenging papal authority on some key secular matters. Henry VIII of England had to break with Rome entirely simply to secure the divorce he sought from his wife. Thus, intimate linkage between religious and state power marked most of Christian history in a way that has had no parallel in Islam.

And in Islam, the Sunni branch in particular is characterized by a lack of centralized theological control or even of a single authoritative voice like a pope. So, in one sense, it shares the same dilemma as Protestantism. There is no one figure in Sunni Islam who can speak with absolute or binding authority on questions of interpretation of Islam. The

You put the small thief in prison, but the big thief lives in a palace.

In a mad world it always seems simpler to obey.

I have never planned anything illegal in my life,' Aunt Augusta said. 'How could I plan anything of the kind when I have never read any of the laws and have no idea what they are?

O God, forgive me - I am a proud, lustful, greedy man. I have loved authority too much. These people are martyrs - protecting me with their own lives. They deserve a martyr to care for them - not a man like me, who loves all the wrong things.

Perhaps to the soldier the civilian is the man who employs him to kill, who includes the guilt of murder in the pay-envelope and escapes responsibility.

It's always the same wherever one goes- it's not the most powerful rulers who have the happiest populations

He began to realize what the criminal class knows so well, the impossibility of explaining anything to a man with power.

As long as there is a Church, there will be little Torquemadas

In un mondo folle, ubbidire sembra sempre la soluzione più semplice.

he looked as a man might look who owned the whole world, the whole

Oh, go away,' I said. 'Go to your Third Force and York Harding and the Role of Democracy. Go away and play with plastics.' Later I had to admit that he had carried out my instructions to the letter.

Men will always have to choose a lesser evil and the lesser evil may mean the state, the prison camp, yes, if you like to say it, the psychiatric hospital.

Through the cold night air the Assistant Commissioner imagined for a moment that between the verses he could hear the footsteps of the warders pacing in the tower.

It takes courage to throw off unproductive methods and approaches that the majority of scholars in your field have unquestioningly yoked themselves to for decades.

On the People's Democratic Dictatorship

When was the last time you had a thought that wasn't put there by THEM?

El apocalipsis queda anulado. Hasta que yo lo diga.

I suppose you think this is some big fight between youth and experience? Anarchy and authority? People like you always miss the point, Quentin Quire. It's all about in versus out.

What are Captain

You yourself are guilty of a crime when you do not punish crime.

He hired people who were either barely qualified or lacked credentials, so they didn't have the courage to challenge him. He kept a few competent people to whom he channeled the bulk of the work he didn't understand. And his superiors had less technical knowledge than he did.

In front of the officers, in front of Captain Phasma especially, they always used their appropriate designations