Quotes About Authority

A press that has validity is a press that has authority. And as soon as there's any authority to what the press says, you question the authority of the government - it's like the existence of another authority.

If you're sick, first you have to associate your sickness with a food. Then you have to report it to your doctor. Then the doctor reports it to some state authority. The state authority reports it to the federal authority. By the time all that happens, two weeks have gone by.

Nobody wants a job where they don't have authority to go along with the responsibility. Quite the contrary. The more authority you give people, the better people you can attract, and the harder they're going to work, and the more loyal they are going to be.

I do not espouse the unitarian position. President Clinton's assertion of directive authority over administration, more than President Reagan's assertion of a general supervisory authority, raises serious constitutional questions.

Does it follow that I reject all authority? Perish the thought. In the matter of boots, I defer to the authority of the boot-maker.

It's actually not very hard to re-set between the adult novels and the ones for younger readers. The narrative voices are very similar, the smartass attitude, the environmental battles. Kids love books that are irreverent and challenge authority, when authority is arbitrary, greedy or foolish. They also love it when you make fun of grownups, and I've spent my whole life as a writer doing that.

We do not sit in authority over the Scripture, the Scripture sits in authority over us.

The anarchist, as the born foe of authority, will be destroyed by it after damaging it more or less. The anarch, on the other hand, has appropriated authority; he is sovereign. He therefore behaves as a neutral power vis-à-vis state and society. He may like, dislike, or be indifferent to whatever occurs in them. That is what determines his conduct; he invests no emotional values.

Central authority is bad. The bias should be for freedom. And without a central authority, there are lots of little authorities, and we learn which ones to trust.

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

Management means, in the last analysis, the substitution of thought for brawn and muscle, of knowledge for folkways and superstition, and of cooperation for force. It means the substitution of responsibility for obedience to rank, and of authority of performance for the authority of rank.

The ultimate authority resides in the people, and that if the federal government got too powerful and overstepped its authority, then the people would develop plans of resistance and resort to arms.

Influence is not the same as authority. Authority can be abused by influence gives.

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

They must find it hard to take Truth for authority who have so long mistaken Authority for Truth.

The use of force stands in need of control by a public neutral authority, in the interests of liberty no less than of justice. Within a nation, this public authority will naturally be the state; in relations between nations, if the present anarchy is to cease, it will have to be some international parliament.

Blanche is written with a terrible authority, the authority that comes from artistic necessity when the writer is compelled to write by his demon, rather than by his agent or promoter.

Taking legislative authority away from the federal government doesn't necessarily mean freer individuals. It might just mean granting vastly more authority to the states--which already have far broader police powers than most of us would care to admit.

I obviously identify with the anti-authority figure. I've pretty much always had problems with authority, ever since I was a kid. But, yeah, it's not identifying, I think it's more a part of my natural DNA that I question anybody who has a plan. Everybody's got to have an angle; that's the way I grew up.

The importance of immobility and silence to photographic authority, the nonfilmic nature of this authority, leads me to some remarks on the relationship of photography with death. Immobility and silence are not only two objective aspects of death, they are also its main symbols, they figure it.

That's the thing about independently minded children. You bring them up teaching them to question authority, and you forget that the very first authority they question is you.

When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.

There are questions of real power and then there are questions of phony authority. You have to break through the phony authority to begin to fight the real questions of power.

The Court is most vulnerable and comes nearest to illegitimacy when it deals with judge-made constitutional law having little or no cognizable roots in the language or design of the Constitution.... There should be, therefore, great resistance to ... redefining the category of rights deemed to be fundamental. Otherwise, the Judiciary necessarily takes to itself further authority to govern the country without express constitutional authority.

In varying degrees, the authority of the dharma was replaced by the authority of the guru, who came, in some traditions, to assume the role of the Buddha himself.

War and Authority are companions; Peace and Liberty are companions.

Many argue that Christianity is "different" from other religions - that it is primarily about love of one's fellow man. The Crusades, The Inquisition, Calvin's Geneva all prove that this is not the case. These events were pre-eminently about obedience to authority.

I believe that there's a way to question authority with manners, with dignity. There's no reason to be rude about it.

All wars come to an end, at least temporarily. But the authority acquired by the state hangs on; political power never abdicates.

The bullshitter is neither on the side of the true or the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

There exists ample authority under which population growth could be regulated...It has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.

A Congresswoman must look like a girl, act like a lady, think like a man, speak on any given subject with authority and most of all work like a dog.

Baby boomers helped me a great deal in my career. They launched me. They were there for me to sing my song to. And I'm not saying I'm better than anyone, but I think they turned that anti-authority baby boom mentality into their own enemy. Now I identify very closely with their children.

You can become anything you want to be ... It's a matter of authority. Whatever a man's confidence, that's his capacity.

Auschwitz is outside of us, but it is all around us, in the air. The plague has died away, but the infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it. Rejection of human solidarity, obtuse and cynical indifference to the suffering of others, abdication of the intellect and of moral sense to the principle of authority, and above all, at the root of everything, a sweeping tide of cowardice, a colossal cowardice which masks itself as warring virtue, love of country and faith in an idea.

I want to tell the vice president and everybody else that when I'm president there will be a controlling legal authority.

To live coram Deo is to live one’s entire life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, to the glory of God.

Bullies thrive wherever authority is weak

A man's women folk, whatever their outward show of respect for his merit and authority, always regard him secretly as an ass, and with something akin to pity. His most gaudy sayings and doings seldom deceive them; they see the actual man within, and know him for a shallow and pathetic fellow. In this fact, perhaps, lies one of the best proofs of feminine intelligence, or, as the common phrase makes it, feminine intuition.

To be free in an age like ours, one must be in a position of authority. That in itself would be enough to make me ambitious.

When people in authority want the rest of us to behave, it matters-first and foremost-how they behave.

In fact, it is because the nature of prayer is so personal and can have such a powerful effect on a community that the government may not use its authority to try to influence an individual's decision on whether and when to pray.

I don't use 'always do this,' 'never say that' and I never give advice because I'm not the end-all, be-all authority.

Adolescence can be a time of turmoil and turbulence, of stress and storm. Rebellion against authority and against convention is to be expected and tolerated for the sake of learning and growth.

The very nature of economics is rooted in nationalism. ... It [was] developed ... in the hope of throwing light upon questions of policy. But policy means nothing unless there is an authority to carry it out, and authorities are national.

Give us the grace - When the sacredness of life before birth is attacked, to stand up and proclaim that no one ever has the authority to destroy unborn life.

How long would authority ... exist, if not for the willingness of the mass to become soldiers, policemen, jailers, and hangmen.

I think of myself as unconventional. I maybe always had a problem with authority, like a stubbornness about what's expected - despite wanting to get some recognition through performing - but also not always wanting to do the expected thing.