Authority Quotes - Page 20

• It was not that I thought I was smarter. I had simply explored science and found what seemed to me a far more powerful authority. And, I did not steal or murder because I thought they were wrong, not because I feared damnation.

  Victor J. Stenger

  Powerful, Atheism, Damnation

  Victor J. Stenger (2003). “Has Science Found God?: The Latest Results in the Search for Purpose in the Universe”, Pyr Books

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• Webster never goes behind government, and so cannot speak with authority about it. His words are wisdom to those legislators who contemplate no essential reform in the existing government; but for thinkers, and those who legislate for all time, he never once glances at the subject.... Comparatively, he is always strong, original, and, above all, practical. Still, his quality is not wisdom, but prudence.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wisdom, Strong, Government

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• The members of a body-politic call it "the state" when it is passive, "the sovereign" when it is active, and a "power" when they compare it with others of its kind. Collectively they use the title "people," and they refer to one another individually as "citizens" when speaking of their participation in the authority of the sovereign, and as "subjects" when speaking of their subordination to the laws of the state.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Law, People, Titles

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• Authority's for sharing only when the sharer is sure of his (or hers).

  Malcolm Forbes

  Power

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• Dogmatic toleration is nonsense: I would no more tolerate the teaching of Calvinism to children if I had power to persecute it than the British Raj tolerated suttee in India. Every civilized authority must draw a line between the tolerable and the intolerable.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Children, Teaching, Tolerance

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• 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

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• In one sense it is evident that the art of kingship does include the art of lawmaking. But the political ideal is not full authority for laws but rather full authority for a man who understands the art of kingship and has kingly ability.

  Plato

  Art, Men, Law

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• [O]ur rules can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Rights, Religion, Natural

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• The devotion of democracy to education is a familiar fact. The superficial explanation is that a government resting upon popular suffrage cannot be successful unless those who elect and who obey their governors are educated. Since a democratic society repudiates the principle of external authority, it must find a substitute in voluntary disposition and interest; these can be created only by education.

  John Dewey

  Education, Successful, Government

  John Dewey (2015). “Democracy and Education: Top American Authors”, p.66, 谷月社

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• There are always those who are willing to surrender local self-government and turn over their affairs to some national authority in exchange for a payment of money out of the Federal Treasury. Whenever they find some abuse needs correction in their neighborhood, instead of applying the remedy themselves they seek to have a tribunal sent on from Washington to discharge their duties for them, regardless of the fact that in accepting such supervision they are bartering away their freedom.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Freedom, Self, Government

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• I have made it quite clear that a unified Ireland was one solution that is out. A second solution was a confederation of two states. That is out. A third solution was joint authority. That is out-that is a derogation of sovereignty.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Two, Government, Politics

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• There are at the present time two great nations in the world--the Russians and the Americans. The American relies upon his personal interest to accomplish his ends and gives free scope to the unguided exertions and common sense of the people. The Russian centers all his authority of society in a single arm. The principal instrument of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude. Their starting point is different and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems marked by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Destiny, Two, Rely Upon

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• You cannot undermine police authority and then complain about rising crime.

  Thomas Paine

  Fear, Police, Complaining

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• I firmly believe that the army of persons who urge greater and greater centralization of authority and greater and greater dependence upon the Federal Treasury are really more dangerous to our form of government than any external threat that can possibly be arrayed against us.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Believe, Army, Government

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• Were it possible so to accelerate the intercourse between every part of the globe that all its inhabitants could be united under the superintending authority of an ecumenical Council, how great a portion of human evils would be avoided.

  James Madison

  Peace, Evil, Would Be

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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• The impulse to perfection cannot exist where the definition of perfection is the arbitrary decision of authority. That which is born in loneliness and from the heart cannot be defended against the judgment of a committee of sycophants. The volatile essences which make literature cannot survive the clichés of a long series of story conferences.

  Raymond Chandler

  Loneliness, Heart, Essence

  Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Gardiner, Kathrine Sorley Walker (1977). “Raymond Chandler Speaking”, p.120, Univ of California Press

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• For the educated, the authority of science rested on the strictness of its methods; for the mass, it rested on the powers of explanation.

  Jacques Barzun

  Mass, Method, Educated

  Jacques Barzun (1964). “Science: the glorious entertainment”

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• Corrupt influence is itself the perennial spring of all prodigality, and of all disorder; it loads us more than millions of debt; takes away vigor from our arms, wisdom from our councils, and every shadow of authority and credit from the most venerable parts of our constitution.

  Edmund Burke

  Spring, Shadow, Credit

  Edmund Burke (1999). “The Portable Edmund Burke”, p.174, Penguin

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• It is a mistake to believe that science consists in nothing but conclusively proved propositions, and it is unjust to demand that it should. It is a demand made by those who feel a craving for authority in some form to replace the religious catechism by something else, even a scientific one.

  Sigmund Freud

  Religious, Mistake, Believe

  Sigmund freud (1975). “Gen Intro Psycho”, Pocket

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• ... beauty, like ecstasy, has always been hostile to the commonplace. And the commonplace, under its popular label of the normal,has been the supreme authority for Homo sapiens since the days when he was probably arboreal.

  Ellen Glasgow

  Beauty, Normal, Labels

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• At a distance, we cannot conceive of the authority of a despot who knows all his subjects on sight.

  Stendhal

  Distance, Power, Government

  "La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma)". Book by Stendhal (Chapter 16), 1839.

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• The method of authority will always govern the mass of mankind; and those who wield the various forms of organized force in the state will never be convinced that dangerous reasoning ought not to be suppressed in some way.

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Way, States, Form

  Charles Sanders Peirce, Nathan Houser, Christian J.W. J. W. Kloesel (1992). “The Essential Peirce, Volume 1: Selected Philosophical Writings? (1867–1893)”, p.121, Indiana University Press

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• The adolescent frequently supposes that she is breaking out of the confines of her mundane, schoolgirl existence simply in order to break rules and defy authority. . . . She rids herself of the "oughts" and "musts" that convert every minor infraction into a sin of omission or commission. It certainly does not occur to her or to her family that by questioning the moral standards she erected as a child she is taking the first steps in her journey toward a firmer, more reasonable, less harsh, more ethical form of conscience.

  Louise J. Kaplan

  Children, Journey, Omission

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• We think that we live in a heterosexual society because most men are fixated on women as sexual objects; but, in fact, we live ina homosexual society because all credible transactions of power, authority, and authenticity take place among men; all transactions based on equity and individuality take place among men. Men are real; therefore, all real relationship is between men; all real communication is between men; all real reciprocity is between men; all real mutuality is between men.

  Andrea Dworkin

  Real, Communication, Men

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• A woman who occupies the same realm of thought with man, who can explore with him the depths of science, comprehend the steps of progress through the long past and prophesy those of the momentous future, must ever be surprised and aggravated with his assumptions of leadership and superiority, a superiority she never concedes, an authority she utterly repudiates.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Past, Men, Long

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