AUTHORITY

Related Subjects: Command, Dictatorship, Discipline, Executives, Government, Influence, Leadership, Law, Master, Obedience, Power, Responsibility

1. For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.—Bible, Matthew 7:29

2. I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh.—Bible, Matthew 8:9
   

3. Authority intoxicates,
   And makes mere sots of magistrates;
   The fumes of it invade the brain,
   And make men giddy, proud, and vain.—SAMUEL BUTLER, Miscellaneous Thoughts
   

4. It is not for a man in authority to sleep a whole night.—HOMER
   

5. He who is firmly seated in authority soon learns to think security, and not progress, the highest lesson of statecraft.—LOWELL, Among My Books
   

6. "I fired the man," said the new section boss, "not because I had any thing agin him but because I had the authority."—CARL SANDBURG, The People, Yes
   

7. There thou mightst behold the great image of authority; a dog's, obey'd in office.—SHAKESPEARE, King Lear
   

8. Drest in a little brief authority.SHAKESPEARE, Measure for Measure
   

9. Thus can the demigod Authority
   Make us pay down for our offence by weight
   The words of heaven.—SHAKESPEARE, Measure for Measure
   

10. Though authority be a stub­born bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold.—SHAKESPEARE, The Winter's Tale
    

11. And art made tongue-tied by authority.—SHAKESPEARE, Sonnet LXVI
    

12. Of all the authorities to which men can be called to submit, the wisdom of our ancestors is the most whimsically absurd.—JEREMY TAYLOR
    

13. Authority forgets a dying king.—TENNYSON, Idylls of the King
    

14. No power on earth is so worthy of honor for itself, or of reverential obedience to the rights which it represents, that I would consent to admit its uncontrolled and all-predominant authority. When I see that the right and the means of absolute command are conferred on a people or upon a king, upon an aristocracy or a democracy, a monarchy or a republic, I recognize the germ of tyranny, and I journey onwards to a land of more hopeful institutions.—DE TOCQUEVILLE, Democracy in America
    

15. Every nation, every epoch, every thoughtful human being, has again and again to establish the landmarks between freedom and authority: for, in the absence of authority, liberty degenerates into license, and chaos ensues; and authority becomes tyranny unless it is tempered by freedom.—STEFAN ZWEIG, The Right to Heresy