AUTHORITY QUOTES

quotations about authority

Authority quote

Giving orders you know won't be obeyed is one of the best ways I know to destroy your own authority.

DAVID WEBER

By Schism Rent Asunder

Tags: David Weber


To punish me for my contempt of authority, Fate has made me an authority myself.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

aphorism for a friend, Sep. 18, 1930, Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel

Tags: Albert Einstein, Fate


But man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,
As make the angels weep.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Measure for Measure

Tags: William Shakespeare, angels


Some system of authority is a requirement of all communal living, and it is only the man dwelling in isolation who is not forced to respond, through defiance or submission, to the commands of others.

STANLEY MILGRAM

Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View

Tags: community


Obedience is the psychological mechanism that links individual action to political purpose. It is the dispositional cement that binds men to systems of authority.

STANLEY MILGRAM

Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View

Tags: obedience


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

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

journal, Feb. 3, 1860

Tags: Henry David Thoreau, fools


Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

letter to Jost Winteler, 1901

Tags: Albert Einstein, truth


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

STANLEY MILGRAM

Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View

Tags: responsibility


And though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The Winter's Tale

Tags: William Shakespeare, gold


Therefore it is that the evil principle of violence relegated to authority is ever increasing, and the evil becomes in time worse than that which it is supposed to control.

LEO TOLSTOY

The Kingdom of God is Within You

Tags: Leo Tolstoy


Authority intoxicates,
And makes mere sots of magistrates;
The fumes of it invade the brain,
And make men giddy, proud, and vain.

SAMUEL BUTLER

Miscellaneous Thoughts

Tags: Samuel Butler


Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge--fitter to bruise than polish.

ANNE BRADSTREET

Meditations Divine and Moral

Tags: Anne Bradstreet, wisdom


For no one's authority ought to rank so high as to set a value on his words and terms even though nothing clear and determinate lies behind them.

GEORGE BERKELEY

De Motu

Tags: George Berkeley


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

OSCAR WILDE

De Profundis

Tags: Oscar Wilde


There's no point in questioning something if you're not interested in finding the answer. We're right to question authority when we think that authority is unfounded, unjust, or otherwise just screwed up somehow. But if we ask the question, we need to be willing to help find the answer, understanding that the answer might be complicated, that it might be difficult, or that the answer might be different from what we initially think it is.

STEVE NOWICKI

convocation speech delivered to Duke University Class of 2019, August 19, 2015


Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar, And the creature run from the cur: There, thou might'st behold the great image of authority; A dog's obeyed in office.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

King Lear

Tags: William Shakespeare


Authority forgets a dying king.

ALFRED TENNYSON

Idylls of the King

Tags: Alfred Tennyson, kings


Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history mankind has been bullied by scum. Those who lord it over their fellows and toss commands in every direction and would boss the grass in the meadow about which way to bend in the wind are the most depraved kind of prostitutes. They will submit to any indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to achieve power. The worst off-sloughings of the planet are the ingredients of sovereignty. Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy the whores are us.

P. J. O'ROURKE

Parliament of Whores

Tags: P. J. O'Rourke, democracy


As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our troubles.

BERTRAND RUSSELL

An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish

Tags: Bertrand Russell, reason


Any man who asks for greater authority does not deserve to have it.

BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON

The Butlerian Jihad

Tags: Brian Herbert