Quotes About Authority

To Dick's mind, the flow of information should be channeled with discretion, with an unambiguous interpretation controlled by the people at the top.

Long hair is an unpardonable offense which should be punishable by death.

Long hair is an unpardonable offence which should be punishable by death.

I'm not an anarchist, but I believe that people don't want the royal family - the so-called royal family.

Still, Marcus was acutely aware that he served at Hadrian's pleasure. In a state ruled absolutely by one man, no matter how enlightened that man might be, every other man was at his mercy.

There was no reasoning with a mortal who believed the whole world was wrong about everything, and only he and a handful of others were right—and not merely right but absolutely sure of their rightness because of an imaginary authority that could not be questioned.

Amazing, isn't it? In fact if not in name, the Roman Empire is being run by women. Legitimacy runs through the female line—from the emperor's wife to her sister, thence to her daughters, and only then to the young emperor and his cousin. No woman has exercised such power since Cleopatra, and even she pales in comparison. Cleopatra had Egypt, and Asia for a while, but Maesa and her daughters rule every province of the Roman Empire.

The state is the emperor; the emperor is the state. The rest of us are like grains of sand on a beach: interchangeable, indistinguishable, inconsequential. A Roman citizen has no importance whatsoever, no matter how much some of us would like to pretend otherwise.

Alexander proclaimed that he was not to be addressed as Dominus by his fellow Romans. He preferred to be called Imperator.

But many other people will fail to adhere to the recommendations of health authorities. These people will engage in seeming self-defeating behaviors such as refusing to get vaccinated, if a vaccine is available. These people will refuse to stay home when they are sick. They will spread infection to other people.

What motivates people to seek out dubious or frankly bogus treatments? Diverse motivations are likely to be at play, including imitation, conformity, desperation, and indiscriminate reliance on authority figures. According to one survivor of the Spanish flu pandemic: My mother used goose grease and turpentine mixed like a salve, sometimes she made a poultice out of it. I think it really helped. She told me it did, so I had to believe it. (Pettigrew, 1983, p. 120)

Learn the rules before you break them.

It is not only in medicine that persons in authority will resist any investigation that might reduce their authority.

I think God's going to come down and pull civilization over for speeding.

The clothes have no emperor.

Herr domare, gör med mej vad ni vill! Giljotinera mej, utsätt mej för skärseldens gröna, röda och violetta plågor gör mej till hund – men förskona mej från en sak! Förvandla mej inte till domare! Bara inte domare.

There is a higher law than the law of government. That's the law of conscience.

Daniel took off his tie, loosened his shirt collar. He didn't like Owen seeing him in uniform. It made him feel young and conventional.

Leila Saatchi never gave orders, never had to. It was a knack she had. Her suggestions were so compelling.

Archimage Mordryn made a soft sound of assent. He was a massive man, broad of shoulder, built more like a warrior than a priest. His face was kind and avuncular, his voice always gentle. Valraven considered him to be one of the most dangerous men in the Empire.

The ways of men have no power over us.

Listen, don't bother trying to resist Varian. He is stronger than you. Let him amuse himself.

Servants, drawn to witness the procession, bowed as they passed as if they were blades of grass and the sight of the royal woman was a scythe passing over the field.

When he sat upon his throne there, the empress's hand would be forever upon his shoulder, lightly but firmly.