Authority Quotes

Authority is something from which we are constantly subtracting, of which there remains always a residue, and which we attempt to make smaller and smaller.

Do you not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?

I do not call majesty that pomp which surrounds kings or that exterior magnificence which dazzles the vulgar. That is but the reflection of majesty and not majesty itself. Majesty is the image of the grandeur of God in the prince.

For years, we've been bludgeoned with the cliche "information is power." But information isn't power. After all, who's got the most information in your neighborhood? Librarians. And they're famous for having no power at all. And who has the most power in your community? Politicians. And they're notorious for being ill-informed.

You might just as well read the Bible to a herd of buffaloes as to those fellows ... but they have a supreme respect for the logic ... embodied in Sharp's rifles .

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.

I can't really put it in one sentence because although on one hand Preacher is about faith and yes it is also about, I suppose, the search for God, the search for faith and the manipulation and the abuse committed by figures in whom I suppose people have faith.

Liberals love to say things like, "We're just asking everyone to pay their fair share." But government is not about asking. It is about telling. The difference is fundamental. It is the difference between making love and being raped, between working for a living and being a slave. The Internal Revenue service is not asking anybody to do anything. It confiscates your assets and puts you behind bars if you don't pay.

I am king. I am lord. I am praiseworthy. I am important. I am magnificent. I am foremost. I am a hero. I am a warrior. I am a lion, and I am virile.

The art of governing mankind by deceiving them.

He who has the greatest power put into his hands will only become the more impatient of any restraint in the use of it.

What millions died – that Caesar might be great!

No one is able to rule unless he is also able to be ruled.

You don’t have a staff General, you have a court.

Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.

God created the first pair equal in rights, possessions, and authority. He bequeathed the earth to them as a joint inheritance; gave them joint dominion over the irrational creation; but none over each other.

Power without authority is tyranny.

No one who wears a crown is ever safe.

Personally I declare that I owe the Pope no other obedience than that to Antichrist.

Considering mankind's indifference to freedom, their easy gullibility and their facile response to conditioning, one might very plausibly argue that collectivism is the political mode best suited to their disposition and their capacities. Under its regime, the citizen, like the soldier, is relieved of the burden of initiative and is divested of all responsibility, save for doing as he is told.

If you have ever seen a four-year-old trying to lord it over a two-year-old, then you know what the basic problem of human nature is - and why government keeps growing larger and ever more intrusive.

Power is given only to those who dare to lower themselves and pick it up.

The kings are ravenous beasts, their ministers are dogs.

When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set.

To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.