Authority Quotes - Page 23

• Single parents in particular may have trouble maintaining themselves as authority figures because of underlying guilt; they feel acontinuing sense that they have deprived their kids of the second parent, and so they tend to give in to the children's requests, even when unreasonable.

  Marge M. Kennedy

  Children, Kids, Discipline

  6 Copy quote

• For 350 years we have been taught that reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man and writing an exact man. Football's place is to add a patina of character, a deference to the rules and a respect for authority.

  Red Smith

  Sports, Football, Reading

  14 Copy quote

• The idea of God is the type and foundation of the principle of authority and absolutism, which it is our task to destroy or at least to subordinate wherever it manifests itself.

  Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

  Ideas, Foundation, Principles

  Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (2007). “The Philosophy of Misery”, p.362, Cosimo, Inc.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is nothing sooner overthrows a weak head than opinion by authority, like too strong a liquor for a frail glass.

  Philip Sidney

  Strong, Glasses, Opinion

  Sir Philip Sidney, Jane Porter (1807). “Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney: With Remarks”, p.2

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I beseech you,
  Wrest once the law to your authority:
  To do a great right, do a little wrong.

  William Shakespeare

  Law, Justice, Littles

  'The Merchant of Venice' (1596-8) act 4, sc. 1, l. [215]

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• For Christians above all men are forbidden to correct the stumblings of sinners by force...it is necessary to make a man better not by force but by persuasion. We neither have authority granted us by law to restrain sinners, nor, if it were, should we know how to use it, since God gives the crown to those who are kept from evil, not by force, but by choice.

  Saint John Chrysostom

  Christian, Men, Law

  "On the Priesthood", Book II,

  60 Copy quote

  Show source

• We should never invoke the spirit of antiquity as our authority. Spirits are peculiar things; they cannot be grasped with the hands and be held up before others. Spirits reveal themselves only to spirits. The most direct and concise method would be, in this case as well, to prove the possession of the only redeeming faith by good works.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Hands, Would Be, Peculiar

  5 Copy quote

• The States then being the parties to the constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity, that there can be no tribunal above their authority, to decide in the last resort, whether the compact made by them be violated; and consequently that as the parties to it, they must themselves decide in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition.

  James Madison

  Party, Nullification, May

  James Madison (1867). “1829-1836”, p.517

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Language became a colorless and as indistinct as the business suit which is now worm by everyone, by the scholar, by the businessman, by the professional killer. Being accustomed to a dry and dreary norm and sees in it an obvious sign of arrogance and aggression; viewing authority with almost religious awe he gets into a frenzy when he sees someone pluck the beard of his favorite prophet.

  Paul Feyerabend

  Religious, Arrogance, Dry

  "Science in a Free Society". Book by Paul Feyerabend, 1978.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• ... truth ... carries authority with it; while falsehood and lies skulk under a load of words, without having the power of persuasion; the more they attempt to show themselves, the more they are entangled.

  Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sevigne

  Lying, Persuasion, Shows

  4 Copy quote

• The more destruction there is everywhere, the more it shows the activity of town authorities.

  Nikolai Gogol

  Towns, Destruction, Shows

  "The Inspector General". Play by Nikolai Gogol. Act 1, Scene 1, 1836.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• When Holy Church occasionally hinted that she still considered her authority to be supreme over all nations and superior to the authority of states, men in these times tended to snicker.

  Walter M. Miller, Jr.

  Men, Church, Snickers

  "A Canticle for Leibowitz". Book by Walter M. Miller, Jr., 1960.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We must follow the old authorities and precedents in criminal matters.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Criminals, Matter, Precedent

  4 Copy quote

• I must lay down the law as I understand it, and as I read it in books of authority.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Book, Law, Lays

  4 Copy quote

• In the end theologians are jealous of science, for they are aware that it has greater authority than do their own ways of finding "truth": dogma, authority, and revelation. Science does find truth, faith does not.

  Jerry A. Coyne

  Jealous, Doe, Way

  "William Lane Craig Defends His Ridiculous Claim That Animals Don’t Suffer". "Why Evolution is True" blog by Jerry Coyne, whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com. February 09, 2013.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• If I was not assured by the best authority on earth that the world is to be destroyed by fire, I should conclude that the day of destruction is at hand, but brought on by means of an agent very opposite to that of heat.

  Lewis Carroll

  Mean, Fire, Hands

  Lewis Carroll (2008). “The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll (EasyRead Large Bold Edition)”, p.3, ReadHowYouWant.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Either we, as a society, decide that copyright is the greater value to society, and take active steps to give up private communications as a concept. Either that, or we decide that the ability to communicate in private, without constant monitoring by authorities, has the greater value - in which case copyright will have to give way.

  Rick Falkvinge

  Giving Up, Communication, Way

  "'Avast ye scurvy file sharers!': Interview with Swedish Pirate Party leader Rickard Falkvinge". Wikinews Interview, June 20, 2006.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have begun drafting a memorandum for the prosecuting authorities, together with all evidence necessary to establish not only the existence of numerous specific instances of scientific or economic fraud in relation to the official "global warming" storyline but also the connections between these instances, and the overall scheme of deception that the individual artifices appear calculated to reinforce.

  Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

  Deception, Together, Connections

  "Making the police state work for you" by Christopher Monckton, www.climatedepot.com. December 15, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Whenever I hear a man talking of the advantages of our ill-used sex, I look upon it as the prelude to some new act of authority.

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon

  Sex, Men, Talking

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1831). “Romance and reality, by L.E.L.”, p.95

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Mothers seem to be in subtle competition with teachers. There is always an underlying fear that teachers will do a better job thanthey have done with their child.... But mostly mothers feel that their areas of competence are very much similar to those of the teacher. In fact they feel they know their child better than anyone else and that the teacher doesn't possess any special field of authority or expertise.

  Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot

  Mother, Teacher, Jobs

  Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot (1978). “Worlds apart: relationships between families and schools”, Basic Books (AZ)

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The ambiguous, gray areas of authority and responsibility between parents and teachers exacerbate the distrust between them. The distrust is further complicated by the fact that it is rarely articulated, but usually remains smoldering and silent.

  Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot

  Teacher, Responsibility, Parent

  Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot (1978). “Worlds apart: relationships between families and schools”, Basic Books (AZ)

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• No theory of my own will ever stand in the way of my executing, in good faith, any order I may receive from those in authority over me.

  Ulysses S. Grant

  Order, May, Way

  Ulysses S. Grant (1990). “Ulysses S. Grant: Memoirs & Selected Letters: Library of America #50”, p.1029, Library of America

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Tracing the progress of mankind in the ascending path of civilization, and moral and intellectual culture, our fathers found that the divine ordinance of government, in every stage of the ascent, was adjustable on principles of common reason to the actual condition of a people, and always had for its objects, in the benevolent councils of the divine wisdom, the happiness, the expansion, the security, the elevation of society, and the redemption of man. They sought in vain for any title of authority of man over man, except of superior capacity and higher morality.

  William M. Evarts

  Father, Men, Divine Wisdom

  5 Copy quote

• I regard the state of which I am a citizen as a public utility, like the organization that supplies me with water, gas, and electricity. I feel that it is my civic duty to pay my taxes as well as my other bills, and that it is my moral duty to make an honest declaration of my income to the income tax authorities. But I do not feel that I and my fellow citizens have a religious duty to sacrifice our lives in war on behalf of our own state, and, a fortiori, I do not feel that we have an obligation or a right to kill and maim citizens of other states or to devastate their land.

  Arnold J. Toynbee

  Religious, War, Sacrifice

  12 Copy quote

• Today's parents have little authority over those others with whom they share the task of raising their children. On the contrary,most parents deal with those others from a position of inferiority or helplessness. Teacher, doctors, social workers, or television producers possess more status than most parents.... As a result, the parent today isa maestro trying to conduct an orchestra of players who have never met and who play from a multitude of different scores, each in a notation the conductor cannot read.

  Kenneth Keniston

  Teacher, Children, Player

  4 Copy quote