quotations about authority
No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.
JOSEPH ADDISON
"The Cruelty of Parental Tyranny"
Authority, as you usually think of it, is merely the excuse the strong use to make others conform to what they want.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
The Shack
We have to hate our immediate predecessors to get free from their authority.
D. H. LAWRENCE
letter to Edward Garnett, February 1, 1913
Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.
CHARLES DE GAULLE
attributed, The Art of Living
Power can be legitimate--that is, accepted by the members of society as right and just--or it can be illegitimate. Authority is power that is perceived by others as legitimate, emerging from the exercise of power and the belief of constituents that the power is legitimate.
MARGARET L. ANDERSON
Sociology with Infotrac
Bowing to authority is not the main event. The main event is learning how to problem solve maturely, not letting your judgement be tainted by the stains of emotion.
CHASE MIELKE
"What Students Really Need to Hear", Huffington Post, March 8, 2016
The vices of authority are chiefly four: delays, corruption, roughness, and facility. For delays: give easy access; keep times appointed; go through with that which is in hand, and interlace not business, but of necessity. For corruption: do not only bind thine own hands, or thy servants' hands, from taking, but bind the hands of suitors also, from offering. For integrity used doth the one; but integrity professed, and with a manifest detestation of bribery, doth the other. And avoid not only the fault, but the suspicion. Whosoever is found variable, and changeth manifestly without manifest cause, giveth suspicion of corruption. Therefore always, when thou changest thine opinion or course, profess it plainly, and declare it, together with the reasons that move thee to change; and do not think to steal it. A servant or a favorite, if he be inward, and no other apparent cause of esteem, is commonly thought, but a by-way to close corruption. For roughness: it is a needless cause of discontent: severity breedeth fear, but roughness breedeth hate. Even reproofs from authority, ought to be grave, and not taunting. As for facility: it is worse than bribery. For bribes come but now and then; but if importunity, or idle respects, lead a man, he shall never be without. As Solomon saith, To respect persons is not good; for such a man will transgress for a piece of bread. It is most true, that was anciently spoken, A place showeth the man. And it showeth some to the better, and some to the worse.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Great Place", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
A skeptic is willing to help find an answer when the question is called; a cynic simple rejects, disregards, and disengages. Yes, I want you to question authority, but I want you to question in a way that's engaged and productive, in a way that will help find better answers.
STEVE NOWICKI
convocation speech delivered to Duke University Class of 2019, August 19, 2015
The practice of all ages and all countries (whether Christian or heathen, polite or barbarous) hath been ... to do honour to those who are invested with public authority.
FRANCIS ATTERBURY
Sermons and Discourses on Several Subjects
What is authority? Is it the inevitable power of the natural laws which manifest themselves in the necessary concatenation and succession of phenomena in the physical and social worlds? Indeed, against these laws revolt is not only forbidden--it is even impossible. We may misunderstand them or not know them at all, but we cannot disobey them; because they constitute the basis and fundamental conditions of our existence; they envelop us, penetrate us, regulate all our movements, thoughts, and acts; even when we believe that we disobey them, we only show their omnipotence.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
God and the State
They're all so much afraid of the Council that they're not afraid of anything else.
RICHARD ADAMS
Watership Down
There is nothing sooner overthrows a weak head than opinion by authority, like too strong a liquor for a frail glass.
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney
There is no fettering of authority.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
All's Well That Ends Well
The peaceful transfer of authority is rare in history, yet common in our country. With a simple oath, we affirm old traditions and make new beginnings.
GEORGE W. BUSH
First Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 2001
Authority allows two roles: the torturer and the tortured. Twists people into joyless mannequins that fear and hate, while culture plunges into the abyss.
ALAN MOORE
V for Vendetta
The decay of authority is one of the most marked features of our time. Religion, politics, art, manners, speech, even morality, considered in its widest sense, have all felt the waning of traditional authority, and the substitution for it of individual opinion and taste, and of the wavering and contradictory utterances of publications ostensibly occupied with criticism and supposed to be pronouncing serious judgments. By authority I do not mean the delivery of dogmatic decisions, analogous to those issued by a legal tribunal from which there is no appeal, that have to be accepted and obeyed, but the existence of a body of opinion of long standing, arrived at after due investigation and experience during many generations, and reposing on fixed principles or fundamentals of thought. This it is that is being dethroned in our day, and is being supplanted by a babel of clashing, irreconcilable utterances, often proceeding from the same quarters, even the same mouths.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
Custom and authority are no sure evidence of truth.
ISAAC WATTS
Logic; or, The Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry After Truth