Quotes About Authority

In dreams we see ourselves naked and acting out our real characters, even more clearly than we see others awake. But an unwavering and commanding virtue would compel even its most fantastic and faintest dreams to respect its ever wakeful authority; as we are accustomed to say carelessly, we should never have dreamed of such a thing. Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

If there is any hell more unprincipled than our rulers, and we, the ruled, I feel curious to see it.

Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

When the subject has refused allegiance and the officer has resigned his office, then the revolution is accomplished.

The only government that I recognize,—and it matters not how few are at the head of it, or how small its army,—is that power that establishes justice in the land, never that which establishes injustice. What shall we think of a government to which all the truly brave and just men in the land are enemies, standing between it and those whom it oppresses? A government that pretends to be Christian and crucifies a million Christs every day!

La masse des hommes sert l'État de la sorte, pas en tant qu'hommes, mais comme des machines, avec leurs corps. Ils forment l'armée de métier, ainsi que la milice, les geôliers, policiers, posse comitatus, etc. Dans la plupart des cas, il n'existe aucun libre exercice du jugement ou du sens moral ; mais ils se mettent au niveau du bois, de la terre et des pierres ; et l'on pourrait réaliser des hommes de bois qui rempliraient aussi bien cette fonction.

So much for a blind obedience to a blundering oracle, throwing the stones over their heads behind them, and not seeing where they fell.

The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

We worship not the Graces, nor the Parcae, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveller's cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same. I

I was never molested by any person but those who represented the State.

That government is best that governs not at all.

That government is best which governs least; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe—That government is best which governs not at all; and

si elle (la loi) est d'une telle nature qu'elle fasse de vous l'agent de l'injustice vis-à-vis d'autrui alors je déclare qu'il faut enfreindre la loi

Le meilleur gouvernement est celui qui ne gouverne pas du tout; et quand les hommes y seront prêts, tel sera le genres de gouvernement qu'ils auront. Un gouvernement, au mieux, n'est qu'un expédient ; mais la plupart d'entre eux sont d'habitude, et tous les gouvernements sont quelquefois nuisibles.

It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey.

out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe--That government is best which governs not at all;

This [...] government [...] has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man cam bend it to his will.

The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free. They are the lovers of law and order who observe the law when the government breaks it.

Again, I sometimes say to myself, When many millions of men, without heat, without ill will, without personal feelings of any kind, demand of you a few shillings only, without the possibility, such is their constitution, of retracting or altering their present demand, and without the possibility, on your side, of appeal to any other millions, why expose yourself to this overwhelming brute force?

Thus the state never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.

Mais que sont-ils? Des hommes, vraiment? ou bien de petites forteresses et de petits arsenaux mobiles, au service de quelque homme de pouvoir sans scrupule? Visitez la Base navale de Washington, et regardez un soldat: voilà le genre d'homme qu'un gouvernement américain a le pouvoir de créer, ou ce qu'un gouvernement américain peut faire d'un homme avec sa magie noire - à peine une ombre, à peine un souvenir de ce qu'est l'humanité [...] P.8

Any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it.

Não é desejável cultivar o respeito às leis no mesmo nível do respeito aos direitos. (...) A lei nunca fez os homens sequer um pouco mais justos; e o respeito reverente pela lei tem levado até mesmo os bem-intencionados a agir quotidianamente como mensageiros da injustiça.

Le gouvernement le meilleur est celui qui gouverne le moins