AUTHORITY QUOTES
quotations about authority
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
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
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
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
Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
letter to Jost Winteler, 1901
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
Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
journal, Feb. 3, 1860
And though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
The Winter's Tale
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
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
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
Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge--fitter to bruise than polish.
ANNE BRADSTREET
Meditations Divine and Moral
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
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
Wherever there is a man who exercises authority, there is a man who resists authority.
OSCAR WILDE
De Profundis
Authority forgets a dying king.
ALFRED TENNYSON
Idylls of the King
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
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
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
Any man who asks for greater authority does not deserve to have it.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
The Butlerian Jihad