Quotes About Authority

In fact, the terror of the public execution created centres of illegality: on execution days, work stopped, the taverns were full, the authorities were abused, insults or stones were thrown at the executioner, the guards and the soldiers; attempts were made to seize the condemned man, either to save him or to kill him more surely; fights broke out, and there was no better prey for thieves than the curious throng around the scaffold.

The processes of objectification originate in the very tactics of power and of the arrangement of its exercise.

por el poder de hacer vivir o de arrojar a la muerte.

In civilizations without boats, dreams dry up, espionage takes the place of adventure and the police take the place of pirates

Devant la justice du souverain toutes les voix doivent se taire.

Là où il y a pouvoir, il y a résistance.

And the sentence that condemns or acquits is not simply a judgement of guilt, a legal decision that lays down punishment; it bears within it an assessment of normality and a technical prescription for a possible normalization. Today the judge- magistrate or juror certainly does more than 'judge'.

The guillotine takes life almost without touching the body, just as prison deprives of liberty or a fine reduces wealth.

A democracy of knowledge has never existed , not because those who had knowledge possessed power, but because knowledge itself required humiliated bodies, including the bodies of those who possessed knowledge.

I'm sworn to uphold his laws. Saying that you killed someone because they annoyed you isn't codified as acceptable, by those laws, anywhere I'm aware of. You are clearly not looking carefully enough.

Power such as mine is only granted for one reason - to protect those with less, against yours. Power such as yours? Sarillorn, if the power that you wield is too great a responsibility, I will take it from you; you may then have peace, knowing that there is nothing at all that you can do.

Why will you not just accept what is? You have done as you will in my domain. I have exacted no price for actions that would be the death of any other. Why? I am your enemy here!

I concluded that, unhappily, I'd been born into a world dominated by a rampaging monster called 'law' that was both all-powerful and all-stupid

historians believe that the telescope ranks as perhaps the most seditious instrument ever introduced in the history of science because it challenged the powers that be and forever altered our relationship with the world around us.

God, but it was fun! It was the way I liked it. No arguing, no talking to the stupid peasants. I just walked into that room with a tommy gun and shot their guts out. They never thought that there were people like me in this country. They figured us all to be soft as horse manure and just as stupid.

Él todavía estaba en condiciones de decidir, pero como solamente tenía 11 años, era su padre quien decidía por él. ¿Por qué, Señor, por qué el mundo se organizaba tan rematadamente mal?

Every human is a magician, and in the interaction between the magicians, there are spells being cast everywhere. How? By misusing the word, by taking everything personally, by distorting everything we perceive with assumptions, by gossiping and spreading emotional poison with the word. Humans cast spells mainly upon the people we love the most, and the more authority we have, the more powerful the spells.

The word is not just a sound or a written symbol. The word is a force;

Your word is the power that you have to create. Your word is the gift that comes directly from God.

We need to hear the opinions of others because we are domesticated and we can be manipulated by those opinions.

I saw humans more clearly. I saw them as exceptional creatures under the tyranny of knowledge, helpless to change their circumstances. The human animal is helpless, that is, until the mind decides to change and until knowledge has lost its supreme authority.

I will withhold death from you as long as you obey my one command. Bow down to no one. Worship no one. Not even me. Do you understand?

Some kind of worship of the state, as though the state was somehow different from the schmucks who run it. Can't say I'm keen.

When you're a mile outside the limits of your competence, there is some comfort to be had in sounding like you know what you're doing.