Anyone who in discussion relies upon authority uses, not his understanding, but rather his memory.
Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history mankind has been bullied by scum. Those who lord it over their fellows and toss commands in every direction and would boss the grass in the meadow about which way to bend in the wind are the most depraved kind of prostitutes. They will submit to any indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to achieve power. The worst off-sloughings of the planet are the ingredients of sovereignty. Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy the whores are us.
Authority has every reason to fear the skeptic, for authority can rarely survive in the face of doubt.
Authority is never without hate.
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.
Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.
Authority without wisdom is like a heavy ax without an edge, fitter to bruise than to polish.
Does it follow that I reject all authority? Perish the thought. In the matter of boots, I defer to the authority of the boot-maker.
However sugarcoated and ambiguous, every form of authoritarianism must start with a belief in some group's greater right to power, whether that right is justified by sex, race, class, religion or all four. However far it may expand, the progression inevitably rests on unequal power and airtight roles within the family.
I grew up to always respect authority and respect those in charge.
No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.
No statement should be believed because it is made by an authority.
Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.
To be free in an age like ours, one must be in a position of authority. That in itself would be enough to make me ambitious.
To say that authority, whether secular or religious, supplies no ground for morality is not to deny the obvious fact that it supplies a sanction.