Authority Acceptance Quotes

Some people like to reform everything they can get their hands on. Others want to fold away and worship whatever is presented to them by the caprice of history.

We doctors have always been a simple trusting folk. Did we not believe Galen implicitly for 1500 years and Hippocrates for more than 2000?

I never liked being ordered around - which, of course, was an overreaction. I eventually found out that I didn't mind being ordered around at all when it was by someone who knew what he was doing.

We've gone all the way from foolishly accepting authority to foolishly rejecting all authority.

True power comes when others offer it to you and you merely accept it as a gift, not as the spoils of some personal war.

What identifies an individual as a king is how other people behave towards him. All authority is assumed, and if other people don't accept your authority then you don't have it. Perhaps the critical thing to being a convincing figure of authority is actually not to try too hard.

I play the game as honestly as I can. If the referee gives a penalty there is nothing you can do.

You have to trust your government. Don't let every scar, every wart, every hiccup condemn the whole body.

It is interesting to observe that in the year 1935 the average individual's incurious attitude towards the phenomenon of the State is precisely what his attitude was toward the phenomenon of the Church in the year, say, 1500. It does not appear to have occurred to the Church-citizen of that day, any more than it occurs to the State-citizen of the present, to ask what sort of institution it was that claimed his allegiance.

The price of maintaining membership in the establishment is unquestioning acceptance of authority.