John Milton Quotes

If God himself did not compel obedience, than no man should try.

The Church ... has always reproved the doctrines and condemned the men that rebel against the legitimate [secular] authority.

Our White Czar is a king above kings, And he holdeth fast to the Christian faith, To the Christian faith, to the faith of prayer: He standeth forth for the faith of Christ, And for the house of the Holy Virgin. All the hordes have bowed down to him, All the tribes have submitted to him, Because the White Czar is king over kings.

God and Liberty

The White House Chief of Staff must always remember that he is staff and not chief.

Power tends to confuse itself with virtue, and a great nation is particularly susceptible to the idea that its power is a sign of God's favor.

For the first time in my life, I have to grab the monks by the throat. Me! The most religious man in the Kingdom! Because I've had enough- more than enough! My subjects and the elite among my subjects must obey!

British people do not like being bossed around.

I've always had a problem with doing what I'm told.

It's not necessarily the most compelling thing for a liberal like myself to be making an impassioned plea for the divine rights of kings and for observing the hierarchy of order, of class and authority.

I don't like people telling me what to do.

I never liked being told what to do, so even in school plays, I never liked being an actor.

The best way of me not doing things is to demand it from me.

I have no interest in being told what to do.

I don't particularly like being told what to do.

I just don't like authority. I do like authority when I respect it.

To say that God's sovereignty is limited by man's freedom is to make man sovereign.

By the cross we, too, are crucified with Christ; but alive in Christ. We are no more rebels, but servants; no more servants, but sons!

There is nothing left worth preserving in the notions of unseen powers, controlling human destiny, to which obedience and worship are due.

Aegistheus, the kings have another secret.... Once liberty has exploded in the soul of a man, the Gods can do nothing against that man. It is a matter for men to handle amongst themselves, and it is up to other men and to them alone to let him flee or to destroy him.

He [God] made us free, and He respects that. It is two different spheres of causality. Interdependent, though. It is not two boxes looking at one another without any kind of direct connections. There are very direct connections. That's why the question of "how are we free if God is omnipotent?" is a real, constant question. Ultimately, God is all powerful, and yet we are free.

The child who refuses to travel in the father's harness, this is the symbol of man's most unique capability. "I do not have to be what my father was. I do not have to obey my father's rules or even believe everything he believed. It is my strength as a human that I can make my own choices of what to believe and what not to believe, of what to be and what not to be.

I think we are constantly faced with the same decision. The decision to be blindly obedient to authority versus the decision to try and change things by fighting the powers that be is always, throughout history, the only decision.

In all the dictatorships, there's such a non-understanding of what human beings are. I mean, if you believe in the Bible, you have the story of Adam and Eve and God tells them, "Do whatever you want. The only thing you shouldn't do is eat the apple." What do they do the first thing? They eat the apple. So if you know a little bit the psychology of human beings, you have to understand that if you say something you should not do, then everybody wants to do it.