Quotes
Quotes about Authority
The faith that stand on authority is not faith.
O, let her brother live: Thieves for the robbery have authority When judges steal themselves.
The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.
Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.
Modesty is that feeling by which honorable shame acquires a valuable and lasting authority.
Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority.
Government is beating into submission, imprisoning, and killing...The authority of man-made law is entirely due to weapons of the constables who enforce obedience to its provisions.
Nothing destroys authority so much as the unequal and untimely interchange of power, pressed too far and relaxed too much.
The inertia of the human mind and its resistance to innovation are most clearly demonstrated not, as one might expect, by the ignorant mass- which is easily swayed once its imagination is caught- but by professionals with a vested interest in tradition and in the monopoly of learning. Innovation is a twofold threat to academic mediocrities: it endangers their oracular authority, and it evokes the deeper fear that their whole, laboriously constructed intellectual edifice might collapse. The academic backwoodsmen have been the curse of genius from Aristarchus to Darwin and Freud; they stretch, a solid and hostile phalanx of pedantic mediocrities, across the centuries.
There are in fact four very different stumbling blocks in the way of grasping the truth, which hinder every man however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to wisdom, namely, the example of weak and unworthy authority, longstanding custom, the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge.
Again men have been kept back as by a kind of enchantment from progress in science by reverence for antiquity, by the authority of men counted great in philosophy, and then by general consent.
Public office is a public trust, the authority and opportunities of which must be used as absolutely as the public moneys for the public benefit, and not for the purposes of any individual or party.
To say nothing of its holiness or authority, the Bible contains more specimens of genius and taste than any other volume in existence.
Because authority, though it err like others, Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself That skins the vice o' th' top; go to your bosom, Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know That's like my brother's fault; if it confess A natural guiltiness such as is his, Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue Against my brother's life.
But man, proud man, Drest in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he 's most assured, His glassy essence, like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As make the angels weep. -Measure for Measure. Act ii. Sc. 2.
O, what authority and show of truth Can cunning sin cover itself withal! -Much Ado about Nothing. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Small have continual plodders ever won Save base authority from others' books. These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights That give a name to every fixed star Have no more profit of their shining nights Than those that walk and wot not what they are. -Love's Labour 's Lost. Act i. Sc. 1.
Execrable son! so to aspire Above his brethren, to himself assuming Authority usurp'd, from God not given. He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl, Dominion absolute; that right we hold By his donation; but man over men He made not lord; such title to himself Reserving, human left from human free.
The collective matrix of a science at a given time is determined by a kind of establishment, which includes universities, learned societies, and, more recently, the editorial offices of technical journals. Like other establishments, they are consciously or unconsciously bent on preserving the status quo- partly because unorthodox innovations are a threat to their authority, but also because of the deeper fear that their laboriously erected an intellectual edifice might collapse under the impact.
Merciful heaven, Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt Splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak Than the soft myrtle; but man, proud man, Dressed in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he's most assured His glassy essence--like an angry ape Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As makes the angels weep; who, with our spleens, would all themselves laugh mortal.
Study is like the heaven's glorious sun, That will not be deep-searched with saucy looks: Small have continual plodders ever won, Save base authority from others' books.
In order for a war to be just, three things are necessary. First, the authority of the sovereign.... Secondly, a just cause.... Thirdly ... a rightful intention.
