Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [241-260] of 260 Authority quotesAuthority QuotesAuthority Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Whenever there is a simple error that most laymen fall for, there is always a slightly more sophisticated version of the same problem that experts fall for.~ Amos Tversky For in a Republic, who is "the country?" Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the Government is merely a servant -- merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.~ Mark Twain We have, I fear, confused power with greatness.~ Stewart L. Udall It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.~ Voltaire This, then, is freedom in the external life of man -- that he is independent of the arbitrary power of his fellows.~ Ludwig von Mises It is not conclusive proof of a doctrine’s correctness that its adversaries use the police, the hangman, and violent mobs to fight it. But it is a proof of the fact that those taking recourse to violent oppression are in their subconscious convinced of the untenability of their own doctrines.~ Ludwig Von Mises A republic is not an easy form of government to live under, and when the responsibility of citizenship is evaded, democracy decays and authoritarianism takes over.~ Earl Warren We built your fort. We will not have it used against us.~ John Wayne The contest, for ages, has been to rescue Liberty from the grasp of executive power.~ Daniel Webster Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.~ Daniel Webster Why not include a provision that everybody shall, in good weather, hunt on his own land and catch fish in rivers that are public property and that Congress shall never restrain any inhabitant of America from eating and drinking, at seasonable times, or prevent his lying on his left side, in a long winter's night, or even on his back, when he is fatigued by lying on his right.~ Noah Webster Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.~ Oscar Wilde As one reads history, not in the expurgated editions written for schoolboys and passmen, but in the original authorities of each time, one is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted; and a community is infinitely more brutalised by the habitual employment of punishment than it is by the occasional occurrence of crime.~ Oscar Wilde It has been well said that really up-to-date liberals do not care what people do, as long as it is compulsory.~ George Will We should view our government the way we should a friendly, cuddly lion. Just because he’s friendly and cuddly shouldn’t blind us to the fact that he’s still got teeth and claws.~ Walter E. Williams The essential characteristic of all government, whatever its form, is authority. There must, in every instance, be, on the one hand, governors, and on the other hand, those who are governed. And the authority of governors, directly or indirectly, rest in all cases ultimately on FORCE. Government, in its last analysis, is organized force. Not necessarily or invariably organized, armed force, but the will of a few men, of many men, or of a community prepared by organization to realize its own purposes with reference to the common affairs of the community. Organized, that is, to rule, to dominate.~ Woodrow Wilson Collectivism is the doctrine that the social collective -- called society, the people, the state, etc. -- has rights, needs, or moral authority above and apart from the individuals who comprise it. We hear this idea continually championed in such familiar platitudes as 'the needs of the people take precedence over the rights of the individual,' 'production for people, not profits,' and 'the common good.' Collectivism often sounds humane because it stresses the importance of human needs. In reality, it is little more than a rationalization for sacrificing you and me to the desires of others.~ Jarret B. Wollstein To admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries.~ Virginia Woolf Remember, there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over.~ Frank Zappa I wouldn't call it fascism exactly, but a political system nominally controlled by an irresponsible, dumbed down electorate who are manipulated by dishonest, cynical, controlled mass media that dispense the propaganda of a corrupt political establishment can hardly be described as democracy either.~ Edward Zehr Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print