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Authority Quotes

If he speaks again without me knowing who he is, I will throw him out of the window. And I won't ope...

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I realized I was a teacher when I felt warm during class and got up to open the door. Later on there...

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Picture of David Sedaris
David SedarisTheft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002

A good general rule is that one should seek to be loved by one’s peers—one’s spouse and one’s friend...

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Picture of Dennis Prager
Dennis PragerStill the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph

The plane had lost power in all three engines, dropped from thirty-four thousand feet to twelve thou...

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Incidentally, am I alone in finding the expression “it turns out” to be incredibly useful? It allows...

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Picture of Douglas Adams
Douglas AdamsThe Salmon of Doubt

I doubt that my sense of personal freedom is any stronger than anybody else's. I'm happy to respect ...

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Picture of Edward Abbey
Edward AbbeyPostcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast

Your law always does more harm than crime, and your morality is a form of violence.

It has often been suggested to me that the Constitution of the United States is a sufficient safegua...

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It requires something more than personal experience to gain a philosophy or point of view from any s...

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Authority is not a quality one person 'has,' in the sense that he has property or physical qualities...

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Anyway, there were thousands of Kantoreks, all of them convinced that they were acting for the best,...

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The idea of authority, which they represented, was associated in our minds with a greater insight an...

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Erich Maria RemarqueAll Quiet on the Western Front

There were thousands of Kantoreks, all of whom were convinced that they were acting for the best—in ...

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For a war to be just three conditions are necessary - public authority, just cause, right motive.

The proud cannot accept the authority of God giving direction to their lives. (See Helaman 12:6.) Th...

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She had never been taught to ask permission to do things, and she knew nothing at all about authorit...

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Two ideas are opposed — not concepts or abstractions, but Ideas which were in the blood of men befor...

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Don't give over all of your critical faculties to people in power, no matter how admirable those peo...

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But oh, the perils of leadership in a species so anxious to be told what to do. How little they knew...

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Without agreement on rank and a certain respect for authority there can be no great sensitivity to s...

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Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the...

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In order that there may be institutions, there must be a kind of will, instinct, or imperative, whic...

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You can't come in, colonel," she told him. "You may be in command of your war, but I'm in command of...

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Picture of Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García MárquezOne Hundred Years of Solitude

It vexes me when they would constrain science by the authority of the Scriptures, and yet do not con...

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Ideologically, the pursuit of science is not that different from the ideology that goes into punk ro...

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Any fool can make a ruleAnd any fool will mind it.

I call religion a natural authority, but it has usually been conceived as a supernatural authority.

When the odds are hopeless, when all seems to be lost, then is the time to be calm, to make a show o...

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Picture of Ian Fleming
Ian FlemingOn Her Majesty's Secret Service

I think you are wrong, partner Elijah. My briefing on human characteristics here among the people of...

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You can't stop a teacher when they want to do something. They just do it.

Dumbledore raised his finger for silence, a silence which fell as though he had struck Uncle Vernon ...

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J. K. RowlingHarry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

those who will defend authority against rebellion must not themselves rebel.

I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and sil...

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You are very fond of bending little minds; but where little minds belong to rich people in authority...

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After having so nobly disentangled themselves from the shackles of Parental Authority, by a Clandest...

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Added to the moral solitude of the murderer comes the solitude of the artist, which can acknowledge ...

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We work for peace every time we exercise authority with wisdom and authentic love.

No man has any natural authority over his fellow men.

A child who passes through many hands in turn, can never be well brought up. At every change he make...

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To be free, you have to examine authority, the whole skeleton of authority, tearing to pieces the wh...

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There is no method of self-knowledge. Seeking a method invariably implies the desire to attain some ...

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One of the fundamental causes of the disintegration of society is copying, which is the worship of a...

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Because we want to be inwardly secure, we are constantly seeking methods and means for this security...

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When you make your peace with authority, you become authority.

Moreover I hate everything which merely instructs me without increasing or directly quickening my ac...

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There is nothing in which mankind have been more unanimous [founding nations upon superstition]; yet...

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Picture of John Adams
John AdamsThe Political Writings of John Adams

We unlearn the art of speaking well when we cease to speak with God.

Picture of John Calvin
John CalvinInstitutes of the Christian Religion Volume V.1

I shall drink to the Pope, if you please, still, to conscience first, and to the Pope afterwards.

Phineas didn't really dislike West Point in particular or authority in general, but just considered ...

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John KnowlesA Separate Peace

I also administer the Internet Assigned Names Authority, which is the central coordinator for the In...

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No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of...

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-You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You're dangerous and depraved, ...

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Oh, if Shakespeare says it, that's all right.

Authority must be respected and chosen wisely.

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence he is just u...

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Now a slave is not 'held' by any legal contract, obligation, duty, or authority, which the laws will...

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Atheism may be defined as the mental attitude which unreservedly accepts the supremacy of reason and...

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...legitimacy is based on three things. First of all, the people who are asked to obey authority hav...

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Picture of Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm GladwellDavid and Goliath: Underdogs

Power is like being a lady... if you have to tell people you are, you aren't.

The Glory was entrusted to you, you weren't given permission to pass it on as you see fit.

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Michael EndeThe Neverending Story

When we say, even in a global village, that all politics is local, we mean that national sovereignti...

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Freedom of conscience entails more dangers than authority and despotism.

Is it surprising that the cellular prison, with its regular chronologies, forced labour, its authori...

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Authority, without any condition and reservation, belongs to the nation.

When students cheat on exams it's because our school system values grades more than students value l...

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I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and dominat...

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Modern industrial civilisation has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The drivin...

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That is what I have always understood to be the essence of anarchism: the conviction that the burden...

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God is the King. In him exists all legal authority.

Wherever there is a man who exercises authority, there is a man who resists authority.

All authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it...

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Picture of Oscar Wilde
Oscar WildeThe Soul of Man Under Socialism

Authority is a solvent of humanity: look at any husband, any father of a family, and note the absorp...

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Patrick O'BrianH.M.S. Surprise

I don't care whose son he is. I won't go belly-up like a timid pup. If he's fool enough to take a po...

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Men are excessively ruthless and cruel not as a rule out of malice but from outraged righteousness. ...

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This gesture is one of the motifs of modernity's turn against the principle of imitating nature, tha...

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The reason for the existence of the perfection conjured up in these fourteen lines is that it posses...

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The aesthetic construct, and nothing else, has taught us to expose ourselves to a non-enslaving expe...

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As we know, Rilke, under the influence of Auguste Rodin, whom he had assisted between 1905 and 1906 ...

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In the midst of the ubiquitous dealings with prostituted signs, the thing-poem was capable of openin...

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What the poet has to say to the torso of the supposed Apollo, however, is more than a note on an exc...

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Picture of Peter Sloterdijk
Peter SloterdijkDu mußt dein Leben ändern

We've heard them all talk about Dust, and they're so afraid of it, and you know what? We believed th...

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I was no longer afraid. Not of important men, not of trustees and such; for knowing now that there w...

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The faith that stands on authority is not faith.

The habit of questioning authority is one of the most valuable gifts that a book, or a teacher, can ...

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Picture of Richard Dawkins
Richard DawkinsScience in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist

Ought one to surrender to authority even if one believed that that authority was wrong? If the answe...

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I believe in a lively disrespect for most forms of authority.

When you vote, you are exercising political authority, you're using force. And force, my friends, is...

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Time means a lot to me, paperwork wastes it, and I have always been a firm believer in my right to d...

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Picture of Roger Zelazny
Roger ZelaznyDoorways in the Sand

There is no higher authority.

My master then, assuming he is solitary, in my image, wishes me well, poor devil, wishes my good, an...

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Those moments when we learn that mothers rage and fathers kill, that friends betray and authority is...

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Picture of Samuel R. Delany
Samuel R. DelanyThe Motion Of Light In Water: Sex And Science Fiction Writing In The East Village

Your authority and my degeneracy are one in the same.

At home in Ireland, there's a habit of avoidance, an ironical attitude towards the authority figure.

.It is asking a great deal of a man, who has learnt to regulate his everyday affairs in accordance w...

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Picture of Sigmund Freud
Sigmund FreudNew Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis

Each individual possesses a conscience which to a greater or lesser degree serves to restrain the un...

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The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to...

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But the culture has failed, almost entirely, in inculcating internal controls on actions that have t...

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Picture of Stanley Milgram
Stanley MilgramObedience to Authority

Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can be...

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Do not believe a thing because you have read about it in a book. Do not believe a thing because anot...

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