Lack of Authority Quotes

[Describing the vice presidency:] ... inside work with no heavy lifting.

When the general is weak and without authority; when his orders are not clear and distinct; when there are no fixed duties assigned to officers and men, and the ranks are formed in a slovenly haphazard manner, the result is utter disorganization.

I've spent quality time in the aerospace community, with my service on two presidential commissions, but at heart, I'm an academic. Being an academic means I don't wield power over person, place or thing. I don't command armies; I don't lead labor unions. All I have is the power of thought.

Responsibility without power, the fate of the secretary through the ages.

The House of Lords, an illusion to which I have never been able to subscribe--responsibility without power, the prerogative of the eunuch throughout the ages.

A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of government.

No controlling legal authority

We paid a big price for not stopping it -- that is the looting and the security -- because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness. We never had enough troops on the ground

I kept asking what my role was in the Sena. I was told that I was responsible for Nashik, but I really did not have any rights there.

We've all, at some point in our lives, been in a position where we have felt powerless.

I had never been in charge of anything. I'd always worked for someone. I worked for a furniture warehouse. I did masonry. I always had a boss yelling at me. So I'd never been in charge of an organization.

A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government.

It is not honest inquiry that makes anarchy; but it is error, insincerity, half belief and untruth that make it.

In opposition, there's not much one can do. One doesn't have the carrot and one doesn't have the stick. One can't promote and one can't fire. And persuasion has its limits.

It seems that the reins of government are held with too feeble a hand..

I'm not the king in my own house. I have to wash the dishes and take out the trash and say, 'Yes, baby.' I'm 6-foot-5, but I kind of walk around hunched over.

On the back benches, you can have your say but no power to do anything.

The real truth that dare not speak itself, is that no one is in control, absolutely no one... Nobody is in control. This stuff is ruled by the equations of dynamics and chaos. Now, there may be entities seeking control - the World Bank, the Communist Party, the rich, the somebody-or-others - but to seek control is to take enormous aggravation upon yourself... It's like trying to control a dream.

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!

Government should be weak, amateurish and ridiculous. At present, it fulfills only a third of the role.

For more than three months, I had been president and primary owner of Spellman Investigations, and I can say with complete certainty that I had more power in this office as an underling. My title, it seemed, was purely decorative. I was captain of an unfashionable and sinking ship.

We, perhaps, have corrupted our children and our grandchildren by heedless affluence, by a lack of manliness, by giving the younger generation more money and liberty than their youth can handle, by indoctrinating them with sinister ideologies and false values, by permitting them, as young children, to indulge themselves in imprudence to superiors and defiance of duly constituted authority, by lack of prudent, swift punishment when the transgressed, by coddling and pampering them when they were children and protecting them from a very dangerous world.

Will without power is like children playing at soldiers.

You’ll come with us,” she said. “Sure,” Gavin said. “It wasn’t a request.” “Yes it was,” Gavin said. “When you don’t have power to compel obedience, by definition you’re making a request.

All weakness tends to corrupt, and impotence corrupts absolutely.