Quotes About Authority

It's not easy to be obedient if you suspect your superiors are asses.

When a man beats his boy, he wants a son who won't buck him. He's trying to make a coward. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it works. And the hundredth boy? We can go either way. Kill the old man, or try to become a better one.

I]t is easier to ask forgiveness than to obtain permission.

Jimmy was no fool but he'd been well loved by good parents and well taught by good teachers, and those two facts accounted for the habit of obedience that mystified and enraged Peggy Soong. Over and over in his life, authority had proven correct and the decisions of his parents and teachers and bosses made sense to him eventually.

Honey," Bessie's mamma used to say, "politicians and judges and coppers are money-grubbing thieves. They'll screw you, and rob you, and win elections for doing it, but there's no way around them. Smile and pay the sonsabitches off." The

Put ordinary shitheads in impressive uniforms, give them guns and permission to use them, they'll shoot anyone who threatens their illusions

For mere authority as such never takes hold of our hearts, but virtue and holy lovableness do. We are directed in the ways of obedience by a lawful superior. We are led by a lovable one.

I couldn't have been more than six, but I was calling her an ignorant little bitch. Her momma stood on the porch step shaking her mop at me and saying there were snakes and lizards coming out of my mouth, to which I said i didn't give a shit.

You can be a slave to current magazines or a slave to history

The goal of a voice is to speak not with objective authority but with subjective curiosity.

It's distracting the boys, he says. You ponder what can be said that's enough of a fuck you. (The problem with fuck you's in this sort of place is that you habituate them; they lose their potency, and ergo must increase in outrageousness.) Finally you say, What makes you think I'm not wearing a bra, Mr. LeBump?

Fatalism is now offered, not as just one possible philosophical attitude among others with reasons given for and against it, but as a fact backed by the tremendous authority of science.

All afternoon it rained, then such power came down from the clouds on a yellow thread, as authoritative as God is supposed to be. When it hit the tree, her body opened forever.

Though I found this information surprising, this being the Father of Medicine we are talking about, I did not question it. You do not question an author who appears on the title page as "T.V.N. Persaud, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc., F.R.C. Path. (Lond.), F.F. Path. (R.C.P.I.), F.A.C.O.G." Who knows, perhaps history erred in bestowing upon Hippocrates the title Father of Medicine.

Remember that I have power; you believe yourself miserable, but I can make you so wretched that the light of day will be hateful to you. You are my creator, but I am your master;--obey

some man of power must have existed, with gifts that seemed miraculous to his own times.

I love man as my fellow; but his scepter, real, or usurped, extends not to me, unless the reason of an individual demands my homage; and even then the submission is to reason, and not to man.

His power and threats were not omitted in my calculations:

It had been the mere plaything of nature, when first it crept out of uncreative void into light; but thought brought forth power and knowledge; and, clad with these, the race of man assumed dignity and authority. It was then no longer the mere gardener of earth, or the shepherd of her flocks; it carried with it an imposing and majestic aspect; it had a pedigree and illustrious ancestors; it had its gallery of portraits, its monumental inscriptions, its records and titles.

Tú eres mi creador, pero yo soy tu dueño: ¡obedece!

You are my creator, but I am your master;—obey!

Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful .

Shut up or I'll kill you.

I don't care if he's your grand mother