John Green Quotes

Once you have hierarchy you need rules to protect and administer it, and then you need law and the enforcement of the rules, and you end up with some kind of chain of command or system of order that destroys relationship rather than promotes it. Hierarchy imposes laws and rules and you end up missing the wonder of relationship that we intended for you.

I don't think you can impose a social order from the top down.

If an individual is born with the obligation to obey, who is born with the right to command?

Athenians govern the Greeks; I govern the Athenians; you, my wife, govern me; your son governs you.

Men are marked out from the moment of birth to rule or to be ruled.

Leadership and power vacuums will be filled.

Humans want to know the hierarchy; it's important for there to be one leader.

Everywhere in life, everywhere in the world, there has to be bosses.

He's the president. I'm the general. Unless I want to get impeached, I got to do what he says.

Just as the queen bee, the highest-ranking, peerless creature of her hive, is surrounded by lowly drones to please her, whereas the workers produce honey, the same way is the one who sits on the throne an equal only to himself, and no one's companion.

Obedience alone gives the right to command.

If you see yourself as a kingly type, then you need your serfs and your army and so on around you.

Influence is not government.

Families and societies are small and large versions of one another. Both are made up of people who have to work together, whose destinies are tied up with one another. Each features the components of a relationship: leaders perform roles relative to the led, the young to the old, and male to female; and each is involved with the process of decision-making, use of authority, and the seeking of common goals.

A beautiful woman is born Queen of men and women both, as Mary Stuart was born Queen of Scots, whether men or women.

Tis so much to be a king, that he only is so by being so.

How many kings are governed by their ministers, how many ministers by their secretaries? Who, in such cases, is really the chief?

I'm not the boss of my house. I don't know how I lost it, I don't know when I lost it, I don't really think I ever had it. But I've seen the boss's job...and I don't want it!

A weak King must be what other Kings have been; a strong King is himself, and from then on the meaning of the name of King is changed.

At one time kings were anointed by Deity, so the problem was to see to it that Deity chose the right candidate. In this age the myth is "the will of the people" ... but the problem changes only superficially.

I view the director as my boss. I'm the pawn on the chess board. I don't say something to the director easily, because they are my boss.

Everyone may be called "comrade," but some comrades have the power of life and death over other comrades.

As soon as politicians start climbing up the ladder, they suddenly become kings. I don't know how it works, but what I do know is that republics came to the world to make sure that no one is more than anyone else. The pomp of office is like something left over from a feudal past: "You need a palace, red carpet, a lot of people behind you saying, 'Yes, sir.' I think all of that is awful."

A people may let a king fall, yet still remain a people, but if a king let his people slip from him, he is no longer a king.