Quotes About Authority

You just put that sword away, sir, please, said the voice of Lance-Constable Vimes. You will not shoot me, you young idiot. That would be murder, said the captain calmly. Not where I'm aiming, sir.

You had to hand it to the Patrician, he admitted grudgingly. If you didn't, he sent men to come and take it away.

The people who really run organizations are usually found several levels down, where it is still possible to get things done.

It's not lying when you do it to officers!

You did something because it had always been done, and the explanation was, 'But we've always done it this way.' A million dead people can't have been wrong, can they?

And when the Patrician was unhappy, he became very democratic. He found intricate and painful ways of spreading that unhappiness as far as possible.

Yeah, all right, but everyone knows they torture people, mumbled Sam. Do they? said Vimes. Then why doesn't anyone do anything about it? 'cos they torture people.

You are in favour of the common people?" said Dragon mildly. The common people?" said Vimes. "They're nothing special. They're no different from the rich and powerful except they've got no money or power. But the law should be there to balance things up a bit. So I suppose I've got to be on their side.

Ridcully was to management what King Herod was to the Bethlehem Playgroup Association.

Vimes had once discussed the Ephebian idea of 'democracy' with Carrot, and had been rather interested in the idea that everyone had a vote until he found out that while he, Vimes, would have a vote, there was no way in the rules that anyone could prevent Nobby Nobbs from having one as well. Vimes could see the flaw there straight away.

They obeyed, as wise men do when a woman puts her foot down . . .

You couldn't say 'I had orders.' You couldn't say 'It's not fair.' No one was listening. There were no Words. You owned yourself. [...] Not 'Thou Shalt Not'. Say 'I Will Not'.

Anyway, why would you trust anything written down? She certainly didn't trust Mothers of Borogravia! and that was from the government. And if you couldn't trust the government, who could you trust? Very nearly everyone, come to think of it...

That's the way it was. Privilege, which just means 'private law.' Two types of people laugh at the law; those that break it and those that make it.

You did what you were told or you didn't get paid, and if things went wrong it wasn't your problem. It was the fault of whatever idiot has accepted this message for sending in the first place. No one cared about you, and everyone at headquarters was an idiot. It wasn't your fault, no one listened to you. Headquarters had even started an Employee of the Month scheme to show how much they cared. That was how much they didn't care.

The key to winning, as always, was looking as if you had every right, nay, duty to be where you were. It helped if you could also suggest in every line of your body that no one else had any rights to be doing anything, anywhere, whatsoever.

History was full of the bones of good men who'd followed bad orders in the hope that they could soften the blow. Oh, yes, there were worse things they could do, but most of them began right where they started following bad orders.

What a place! What a situation! What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.

Well, you know Esme. She wasn't one for that kind of thing - never one to push herself forward* * She hadn't ever needed to. Granny Weatherwax was like the prow of a ship. Seas parted when she turned up.

He sighed. It had come to this. He was a responsible authority, and people could use terms like core values at him with impunity.

I notice you didn't laugh, Mr. Black!' 'No, Your Majesty. We are forbidden to laugh at the things kings say, sire, because otherwise we would be at it all day.

Royalty was like dandelions. No matter how many heads you chopped off, the roots were still there underground, waiting to spring up again. It seemed to be a chronic disease. It was as if even the most intelligent person had this little blank spot in their heads where someone had written: Kings. What a good idea. Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw. It was its tendency to bend at the knees.

We can't just drop everything, sir! Mister Lipwig. Is there something in the word 'tyrant' you do not understand?

A lot hinges on the fact that, in most circumstances, people are not allowed to hit you with a mallet. They put up all kinds of visible and invisible signs that say, 'Do not do this' in the hope that it'll work, but if it doesn't, then they shrug, because there is, really, no real mallet at all.