Authority Fear Quotes

Religion is the most fragile of all freedoms. And that's because it is the most threatening to those in power.

By our pontifical assertions, our superior impatience, and our casual brushing aside of their curiosity, we do not encourage their inquiry, for we are rather apprehensive of what may be asked of us; we do not foster their discontent, for we ourselves have ceased to question.

Is a brazen and innocent confrontation with paternal authority an unbearably terrifying prospect to some? Are the consequences of a father's anger and displeasure so catastrophic in the primal imagination that every semblance of it in the world both literally and metaphorically must be denounced in the strongest possible terms? It would seem so.

Looking back, it amuses me that people imagined that I was a very brash, fearless, redheaded young revolutionary when I was in fact a very insecure, mousy-haired, middle-aged man with a deep fear of authority.

People are so afraid of authority figures and doctors are authority figures.

Governments sometimes turn paranoid. And they fear things. And sometimes the thing they fear the most is the populace.

No doubt that anarchist ideas are frightening to those in power. People in power can tolerate liberal ideas. They can tolerate ideas that call for reforms, but they cannot tolerate the idea that there will be no state, no central authority. So it is very important for them to ridicule the idea of anarchism to create this impression of anarchism as violent and chaotic. It is useful for them.

The persecution of the innovator and protestant has always been inspired by fear on the part of constituted authority of having its infallibility questioned and its power undermined.

I was raised to be very wary of the police. I was raised to stay away from them unless you absolutely have to. Because they're dangerous.

In a nutshell-I fear authority but at the same time I resent it-the authority and my own fear. So I rebel.

I've always been a 'your parents have got to come up to the school' type of person. Even now, when I do something wrong - if I say something inappropriate on a live tv show, for example - I half expect to have to deliver a note to Barbara Brand: 'Please come up to Channel 4 head office, Russell's done something despicable.