Sayings about Authority
Who gives the bread lays down the authority. ~ Spanish Proverbs
If you wish to know what a man is, put him in authority. ~ Yugoslavian Proverb
Authority has no partner. ~ French Proverbs
Authority, as a concept, can be used to mean the right to exercise power given by the State (in the form of government, judges, police officers, etc.), or by academic knowledge of an area (someone that can be an authority on a subject) -or in some societies- by higher spiritual powers or deities. ~ (Source Wikipedia)
Quotations about Authority
New faces have more authority than accustomed ones. ~ Euripides
A man in authority is but as a candle in the wind, sooner wasted or blown out than under a bushel. ~ Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
Authority and example lead the world. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
Authority forgets a dying king. ~ Alfred Tennyson
The accidental prescriptions of authority, when time has procured them veneration, are often confounded with the laws of nature, and those rules are supposed coeval with reason, of which the first rise cannot be discovered. ~ Samuel Johnson
An argument from authority is but a weak kind of proof,–it being but a topical probation, and an inartificial argument depending on naked asseveration. ~ Sir Thomas Browne
He who rules by moral force is like the pole star, which remains in place while all the lesser stars do homage to it. ~ Confucius
Even reproof from authority ought to be grave, and not taunting. ~ Francis Bacon
Obedience is the psychological mechanism that links individual action to political purpose. It is the dispositional cement that binds men to systems of authority. ~ Stanley Milgram
Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. ~ Albert Einstein
When authority is backed up by an immediate physical compulsion, what we are dealing with is not authority proper (i.e. symbolic authority), but simply an agency of brute force. ~ Slavoj Zizek
Authority and power are two different things: power is the force by means of which you can oblige others to obey you. Authority is the right to direct and command, to be listened to or obeyed by others. Authority requests power. Power without authority is tyranny. ~ Jacques Maritain
All authority must be out of a man’s self, turned . . . either upon an art, or upon a man. ~ Francis Bacon
Self-possession is the backbone of authority. ~ Thomas Chandler Haliburton
We have to hate our immediate predecessors to get free from their authority. ~ D. H. Lawrence
Three means to fortify belief are experience, reason, and authority. Of these the more potent is authority; for belief upon reason or experience will stagger. ~ Francis Bacon
Authority is quite degrading. ~ Oscar Wilde
The love of power and the love of liberty are in eternal antagonism. ~ John Stuart Mill
Authority, though it err like others, hath yet a kind of medicine in itself, that skins the vice of the top. ~ William Shakespeare
We too often bind ourselves by authorities rather than by the truth. ~ Lucretia Coffin Mott
There is nothing sooner overthrown a weak head than opinion of authority, like too strong a liquor for a frail glass. ~ Sir Philip Sidney
Authority is never without hate. ~ Euripides
There is no fettering of authority. ~ William Shakespeare
Wherever there is a man who exercises authority, there is a man who resists authority. ~ Oscar Wilde
The reason why the simpler sort are moved by authority is the consciousness of their own ignorance. ~ Richard Hooker
Authority is properly the servant of justice, and political powers are arbitrary and illegitimate if not based upon qualification for that service. This is the doctrine of the ethical derivation of authority or public power, as opposed to that of an unconditioned and inherent sovereignty. ~ David Atwood Wasson
We all live inside the terrible engine of authority, and it grinds and shrieks and burns so that no one will say: lines on maps are silly. ~ Catherynne M. Valente
The insolence of authority is endeavoring to substitute money for ideas. ~ Frank Lloyd Wright
To punish me for my contempt of authority, Fate has made me an authority myself. ~ Albert Einstein
As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our troubles. ~ Bertrand Russell
Any man who asks for greater authority does not deserve to have it. ~ Brian Herbert
There is no fettering of authority. ~ William Shakespeare
Every legitimate authority should respect its extent and its limits. ~ Joseph Joubert
Custom and authority are no sure evidence of truth. ~ Isaac Watts
He who is firmly seated in authority soon learns to think security, and not progress, the highest lesson of statecraft. ~ James Russell Lowell
Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence. ~ Charles Gaulle
All human authority is limited by geography, the ability to exercise power, and time. No one has ever been able to claim universal authority over all things. ~ Joey Shaw
Nothing is more gratifying to the mind of man than power of dominion. ~ Joseph Addison
Authority allows two roles: the torturer and the tortured. Twists people into joyless mannequins that fear and hate, while culture plunges into the abyss. ~ Alan Moore
All authority belongs to the people. ~ Thomas Jefferson
There is no authority but yourself. ~ Rick Remender
Authority is not a quality one person “has,” in the sense that he has property or physical qualities. Authority refers to an interpersonal relation in which one person looks upon another as somebody superior to him. ~ Erich Fromm
You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You’re dangerous and depraved, and you ought to be taken outside and shot! ~ Joseph Heller
Giving orders you know won’t be obeyed is one of the best ways I know to destroy your own authority. ~ David Weber
Most men, after a little freedom, have preferred authority with the consoling assurances and the economy of effort which it brings. ~ Walter Lippmann
Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself. ~ Vladimir Lenin
Authority is by nothing so much strengthened and confirmed as by custom; for no man easily distrusts the things which he and all men have been always bred up to. ~ Sir William Temple
Therefore it is that the evil principle of violence relegated to authority is ever increasing, and the evil becomes in time worse than that which it is supposed to control. ~ Leo Tolstoy
How long would authority . . . exist, if not for the willingness of the mass to become soldiers, policemen, jailers, and hangmen. ~ Emma Goldman
Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge–fitter to bruise than polish. ~ Anne Bradstreet
Authority, as you usually think of it, is merely the excuse the strong use to make others conform to what they want. ~ William P. Young