Quotes for Authority

I believe that there's a way to question authority with manners, with dignity. There's no reason to be rude about it.

Nicolas Cage

American democracy must be a failure because it places the supreme authority in the hands of the poorest and most ignorant part of the society.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

In order to the existence of such a ministry in the Church, there is requisite an authority received from God, and consequently power and knowledge imparted from God for the exercise of such ministry; and where a man possesses these, although the bishop has not laid hands upon him according to his traditions, God has Himself appointed him.

John Wycliffe

It is quite acceptable for either party to explicitly go after the black, Hispanic, or even the Jewish vote. In fact both parties gain an indispensable moral authority by doing so.

Shelby Steele

AIDS is a plague - numerically, statistically and by any definition known to modern public health - though no one in authority has the guts to call it one.

Larry Kramer

It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law.

Thomas Hobbes

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.

Thomas Jefferson

I don't have any authority to talk about the domestic policies of America. But as an outsider, I am mystified by the fact that you are encouraged to buy a gun, but if you use it for the purpose that it is expressly designed for, you get the death penalty. That aspect of America is kind of mystifying.

Nick Cave

So white guilt is not a guilt of conscience; it's not something that you get up in the morning and say, my God, I feel guilty about what happened to black Americans. Rather it is the fact that in relation to black Americans you lack moral authority.

Shelby Steele

I did have a feeling then that the culture of factuality was so dominating that storytelling had lost all its authority.

E. L. Doctorow

The man who prefers his country before any other duty shows the same spirit as the man who surrenders every right to the state. They both deny that right is superior to authority.

John Dalberg-Acton

A judge's role is to ensure that the legislature remains within the limits of its assigned authority under the Constitution. Judges have no authority to second-guess the wisdom of the value judgments and policy choices the legislature has made.

Paul Watford

The laws only can determine the punishment of crimes, and the authority of making penal laws can only reside with the legislator, who represents the whole society united by the social compact.

Cesare Beccaria

The fate of every democracy, of every government based on the sovereignty of the people, depends on the choices it makes between these opposite principles, absolute power on the one hand, and on the other the restraints of legality and the authority of tradition.

John Dalberg-Acton

At bottom, the decision to pardon Nixon was a political judgment properly within the bounds of Ford's constitutional authority. The specter of a former president in the criminal dock as our country moved into its bicentennial year was profoundly disturbing.

Richard Ben-Veniste

In our society, authority derives from justice, and in our society, learning to live with authority should derive from and aid learning to understand and to feel justice.

Lawrence Kohlberg

A teacher should have maximal authority, and minimal power.

Thomas Szasz

Do I think it's OK to fight authority as long as you're only talking about the high school teacher? No.

John Mellencamp

The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.

Ken Blanchard

We have seen a degradation from the highest levels of authority politically in this nation, including through the department of justice, for the rule of law.

Matt Bevin