#authority

Read through the most famous quotes by topic #authority




But it doesn't take a thousand men to open a door, my lord." "It might to keep it open.


Ursula K. Le Guin


#diplomacy #fear #power #men

When a man has a gift in speaking the truth, brute aggression is no longer his security blanket for approval. He, on the contrary, spends most of his energy trying to tone it down because his very nature is already offensive enough.


Criss Jami


#approval #authority #blanket #brute-force #brutes

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.


Henry David Thoreau


#conformity #fool #foolishness #law #rule

I am often described to my irritation as a 'contrarian' and even had the title inflicted on me by the publisher of one of my early books. (At least on that occasion I lived up to the title by ridiculing the word in my introduction to the book's first chapter.) It is actually a pity that our culture doesn't have a good vernacular word for an oppositionist or even for someone who tries to do his own thinking: the word 'dissident' can't be self-conferred because it is really a title of honor that has to be won or earned, while terms like 'gadfly' or 'maverick' are somehow trivial and condescending as well as over-full of self-regard. And I've lost count of the number of memoirs by old comrades or ex-comrades that have titles like 'Against the Stream,' 'Against the Current,' 'Minority of One,' 'Breaking Ranks' and so forth—all of them lending point to Harold Rosenberg's withering remark about 'the herd of independent minds.' Even when I was quite young I disliked being called a 'rebel': it seemed to make the patronizing suggestion that 'questioning authority' was part of a 'phase' through which I would naturally go. On the contrary, I was a relatively well-behaved and well-mannered boy, and chose my battles with some deliberation rather than just thinking with my hormones.


Christopher Hitchens


#contrarianism #dissent #dissidents #free-thought #harold-rosenberg

Where the people possess no authority, their rights obtain no respect.


George Bancroft


#no respect #obtain #people #possess #respect

Anyone who in discussion relies upon authority uses, not his understanding, but rather his memory.


Miguel de Unamuno


#authority #discussion #his #memory #rather

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


Martha Beck


#afraid #authority #authority figures #doctors #figures

I believe in a lively disrespect for most forms of authority.


Rita Mae Brown


#believe #disrespect #forms #i #i believe

The president overstepped his authority when he asked the NSA to eavesdrop on Americans' international phone calls without obtaining a warrant.


Sherrod Brown


#authority #calls #eavesdrop #his #international

No Government has the moral authority to dismantle the universally understood meaning of marriage.


Keith O'Brien


#dismantle #government #marriage #meaning #meaning of