Mark Twain Quotes About Authority

• To lodge all power in one party and keep it there is to insure bad government and the sure and gradual deterioration of the public morals.

  Mark Twain

  Graduation, Party, Power

  Mark Twain (2012). “Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 1, Reader’s Edition”, p.169, Univ of California Press

• In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.

  Mark Twain

  Life, Inspiring, Truth

  Autobiography ch. 78 (1959)

• Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Success, Work

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.121, Courier Corporation

• The institution of royalty in any form is an insult to the human race.

  Mark Twain

  Inspiration, Humility, Race

  Mark Twain, Michael Barry Frank, Robert Pack Browning, Lin Salamo, Frederick Anderson, Mark Twain (1980). “Mark Twain's Notebooks & Journals, Volume III: (1883-1891)”, p.424, Univ of California Press

• I am technically "boss" of the family which I am carrying along-but I am grateful to know that it is only technically - that the real authority rests on the other side of the house. It is placed there by a beneficent Providence, who foresaw before I was born, or, if he did not, he has found it out since - that I am not in any way qualified to travel alone.

  Mark Twain

  Travel, Real, Grateful

  Mark Twain (2006). “Mark Twain Speaking”, p.300, University of Iowa Press

• Conformity—the natural instinct to passively yield to that vague something recognized as authority.

  Mark Twain

  Religious, Yield, Natural Instinct

  Mark Twain (2000). “The Jumping Frog: And 18 Other Stories”, p.85, Book Tree

• Honor is a harder master than the law.

  Mark Twain

  Law, Honor, Authority

  Mark Twain (2016). “Mark Twain's Speeches”, p.231, Xist Publishing

• from the beginning of my sojourn in this world there was a persistent vacancy in me where the industry ought to be. (Ought to was is better, perhaps, though the most of the authorities differ as to this.

  Mark Twain

  Vacancy, World, Authority

  Mark Twain (2013). “Autobiography of Mark Twain”, p.46, Univ of California Press

• Some authorities hold that the young ought not to lie at all. That, of course, is putting it rather stronger than necessary; still, while I cannot go quite so far as that, I do maintain, and I believe I am right, that the young ought to be temperate in the use of this great art until practice and experience shall give them that confidence, elegance and precision which alone can make the accomplishment graceful and profitable.

  Mark Twain

  Education, Art, Lying

  Mark Twain (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated)”, p.4158, Delphi Classics

• To be vested with enormous authority is a fine thing; but to have the on-looking world consent to it is finer.

  Mark Twain

  World, Authority, Fine Things

  Mark Twain (1889). “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court”, p.56, Createspace Independent Pub

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