Top 100 On Authority Quotes
#1. No morality can be founded on authority, even if the authority were divine.
A.J. Ayer
#3. Modern intelligence won't accept anything on authority. But it will accept anything without authority.
G.K. Chesterton
#4. The reliance on authority measures the decline of religion, the withdrawal of the soul. The position men have given to Jesus, now for many centuries of history, is a position of authority. It characterizes themselves. It cannot alter the eternal facts.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#6. No moral system can rest solely on authority.
A.J. Ayer
#7. It is not what the man of science believes that distinguishes him, but how and why he believes it. His beliefs are tentative, not dogmatic; they are based on evidence, not on authority or intuition.
Bertrand Russell
#8. The Enlightenment (The beginning of) a way of pursuing knowledge with a tradition of criticism and seeking good explanations instead of reliance on authority.
David Deutsch
#9. That is what I have always understood to be the essence of anarchism: the conviction that the burden of proof has to be placed on authority, and that it should be dismantled if that burden cannot be met.
Noam Chomsky
#10. To be sure, the vast majority of people who are untrained can accept the results of science only on authority.
Morris Raphael Cohen
#11. The best government rests on the people, and not on the few, on persons and not on property, on the free development of public opinion and not on authority.
George Bancroft
#12. All progress in knowledge takes place through the correction of that which has been received on authority.
Margaret Benson
#13. All religious notions are uniformly founded on authority; all the religions of the world forbid examination, and are not disposed that men should reason upon them.
Baron D'Holbach
#14. Science, history and politics are not suited for discussion except by experts. Others are simply in the position of requiring more information; and, till they have acquired all available information, cannot do anything but accept on authority the opinions of those better qualified.
Frank P. Ramsey
#15. As soon as we abandon our reason and are content to rely on authority, there is no end to our troubles.
Bertrand Russell
#17. There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.
Stephen Hawking
#18. The authority of a belief imposed by religion surely destroys the discovery of reality.One relies on authority because one is afraid to stand alone.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
#19. To be vested with enormous authority is a fine thing; but to have the on-looking world consent to it is finer.
Mark Twain
#20. She had Authority conferred on her. Metempsychosistically.
Ford Madox Ford
#21. The first thing that has to be broken down is your relationship to authority. Your insecurity could possibly be the wedge that opens up your perspective on what you think is possible for you to do.
Ross Bleckner
#22. I believe that if Israel were to put an end to the settlements in the West Bank tomorrow, as it did in Gaza, there would still be reluctance on the part of the Palestinian Authority to recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish secular democracy.
Alan Dershowitz
#23. Actually I was more of a breaker than a thrower - most of them putters. I broke so many of those that I probably became the world's foremost authority on how to putt without a putter.
Tommy Bolt
#24. Ah, but I'm not a gentleman," said the Marquis. "I have it on the best of authority that I am only a
nobleman."
"Good gracious, Vidal, who in the world dared to say such a thing?" cried his cousin, instantly
diverted.
"Mary," replied his lordship, pouring himself out a glass of wine.
Georgette Heyer
#25. When teachers or people in authority put me down or in one way or another tried to make me feel less than equal to what they thought I should be - my mother was on my side. It was amazing.
Maya Angelou
#26. They have the ability to take a person's freedom from them. On certain situations, they have the ability to take a person's reputation. And under certain circumstances, they have the authority to take a person's life.
Daryl Gates
#27. Obedience to public authority ought not to be based either on ignorance or stupidity.
Napoleon Bonaparte
#28. We, the people of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know:
That South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of the people.
Nelson Mandela
#29. The transcendent gift of the Holy Ghost, along with membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is bestowed by confirmation, by the laying on of hands by those having priesthood authority.
James E. Faust
#30. Power on the one side, fear on the other, are always the buttresses on which irrational authority is built.
Erich Fromm
#31. Chang despised authority on principle, for even when veiled by the rubric of practical necessity or the weight of tradition he could not see institutional power as anything but an expression of arbitrary personal will, and it galled him profoundly.
Gordon Dahlquist
#32. Authority, unless justified, is inherently illegitimate and that the burden of proof is on those in authority. If this burden can't be met, the authority in question should be dismantled.
Noam Chomsky
#33. Especially those of us who use magic on a regular basis, have to work the wards." "So hes basically blocking members of the Authority?" "Hounds use magic every day. Doctors, teachers." "Point taken. Good to know she's safe from evil magic-using teachers.
Devon Monk
#34. When they left the bar, before parting ways in Port Authority, they stood on the corner of Forty-second Street and Seventh Avenue and continued talking; there were between them always an infinite number of subjects to be addressed and dissected, mulled over and mocked and revised.
Curtis Sittenfeld
#35. Accepted authority rests first of all on reason. If you ordered your people to go and throw themselves into the sea, they would rise up in revolution.
Antoine De Saint-Exupery
#36. I can not impress on my readers too strongly the necessity to be firm but kind to a puppy. His idea of your authority is forming, and if he knows you give in on the slightest whimper, you are wacked for life.
Barbara Woodhouse
#37. Oprah is a wealthy person, pack leader of the human world. So many see her as the dominant one, as the authority figure. The way I view her energy, seeing her on TV, is a very calm, quiet energy. You need, in order to gain control, higher energy than your dog.
Cesar Millan
#38. On the one side are the truths of fact, on the other the truth of the writer's feeling, and where the two coincide cannot be decided by any outside authority in advance.
Roy Pascal
#39. Stuart Blumberg is suddenly an authority on the modern - or, dare we say, post-modern - family, thanks to the critically-acclaimed debut of his new film, 'The Kids Are All Right.'
Rachel Sklar
#40. I discovered I was a monotheist ... That rules out polytheism. I have also had a problem with authority, which rules out any religion with a priesthood or leader who claims to be God's representative on Earth.
G. Willow Wilson
#41. Wherever morality is based on theology, wherever right is made dependent on divine authority, the most immoral, unjust, infamous things can be justified and established.
Ludwig Feuerbach
#42. It is impossible to get to a position of authority without hard work on your part.
Sunday Adelaja
#43. A lot of people didn't like cops just on general principle. They had no problem calling us when they were in need of our services, though. Even the ones that had a problem with our authority, like
Lani Lynn Vale
#44. I'm of the age and immaturity level that I cannot give you my respect solely because you are older or ranked higher on an imaginary totem pole. I give you my respect because of your actions.
Erica Goros
#45. Every person has the inherent right to "self-proclaim"
to announce, at any time he chooses, that he is on any level he chooses to be on.
Robert Ringer
#46. We shall no longer hang on to the tails of public opinion or to a non- existent authority on matters utterly unknown and strange. We shall gradually become experts ourselves in the mastery of the knowledge of the Future.
Wilhelm Reich
#47. Just as Napoleon was the sole authority in the state, so the husband and father was to exercise authority over his family. Unfortunately the only possible result of despotism on either level is hypocrisy.
J. Christopher Herold
#48. He was already telling me about the very important book
with that smug look I know so well in a man holding forth, eyes fixed on the fuzzy far horizon of his own authority.
Rebecca Solnit
#49. On the radio, turned low, Reba sang of hard times with the full authority of a cross-eyed redheaded millionaire.
Christopher Moore
#50. From a May 2010 Interview, Chuck Palahniuk
Weird and creepy but true, I've been reading lots of Judy Blume. Being a 48-year-old male reading about adolescent sex in Forever gets me lots of stares in airports ... At this point I am an authority on menstruation.
Chuck Palahniuk
#51. For the educated, the authority of science rested on the strictness of its methods; for the mass, it rested on the powers of explanation.
Jacques Barzun
#52. Without agreement on rank and a certain respect for authority there can be no great sensitivity to social rules, as anyone who has tried to teach simple house rules to a cat will agree.
Frans De Waal
#53. Remarriage is or is not approved in shastra; I have no authority to speak on this subject. But I surely cannot go on without saying this much, that remarriage has helped a great deal in stopping crime in Fiji.
Totaram Sanadhya
#54. I worked in the White House on 9/11, where the vice president was given the authority to, if he deemed necessary, shoot down an American passenger jet.
Nicolle Wallace
#55. My decision to destroy the authority of the blacks in Saint Domingue (Haiti) is not so much based on considerations of commerce and money, as on the need to block for ever the march of the blacks in the world.
Napoleon Bonaparte
#56. 19I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.
Anonymous
#57. Since Hiroshima and the Holocaust, science no longer holds its pristine place as the highest moral authority. Instead, that role is taken by human rights. It follows that any assault on Jewish life - on Jews or Judaism or the Jewish state - must be cast in the language of human rights.
Jonathan Sacks
#58. I think it will be found that he who speaks with most authority on a given subject is not ignorant of what has been said by his predecessors. He will take his place in a regular order, and substantially add his own knowledge to the knowledge of previous generations.
Henry David Thoreau
#59. At the end of the day, I can't force any of you to treat people the way you should. But it should be on your conscience that whatever law I pass won't do much unless each of you takes it upon yourself to show kindness to your fellow citizens.
Kiera Cass
#60. RABBLE, n. In a republic, those who exercise a supreme authority tempered by fraudulent elections. The rabble is like the sacred Simurgh, of Arabian fable - omnipotent on condition that it do nothing.
Ambrose Bierce
#61. You can always speak with great authority on how well you played today, but never on how you'll play tomorrow.
Gary Player
#62. The most ridiculous were those who, on their own authority, made themselves the judges and justices of the tribe. They seemed never to suspect that our judgments judge us, and that nothing exposes our weaknesses and reveals ourselves more naively than the attitude of pronouncing upon our neighbors.
Paul Valery
#63. Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.
John Adams
#64. Has God designated any one person here on earth to speak with final authority about Him? No - the one Man who could do that lived two thousand years ago, and we crucified Him!
Billy Graham
#65. The pith of conversation does not consist in exhibiting your own superior knowledge on matters of small consequence, but in enlarging, improving and correcting the information you possess by the authority of others.
Walter Scott
#66. If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity.
Daniel Webster
#67. Men suppose their reason has command over their words; still it happens that words in return exercise authority on reason
Francis Bacon
#68. I might have felt unimportant pitted against the awesome might of the mountains. I did not. Rather, on that mountain top I found something important that I had never known before: an awareness of a vital connection between me and the Authority behind all this beauty.
Catherine Marshall
#69. I would write a scientific paper with the devil, if it was on high temperatures. The fellow's probably an authority.
Henry Eyring
#70. Be the authority on your product/company. You should know more about your product than anyone else alive if you're writing a blog about it.
Robert Scoble
#71. Evacuation on September 11. It was aided greatly by changes made by the Port Authority in response to the 1993 bomb= ing and by the training of both Port Authority personnel and civilians after that time. Stairwells remained lit near
Anonymous
#72. What we know about Cleopatra's looks is based purely on her coin portraits. Engraving was imperfect, and that when you are a ruler and you ask for a coin to be engraved with your likeness on it, you are probably trying to project a certain air of authority.
Stacy Schiff
#73. I try to avoid having thoughts. They lead to other thoughts, and - if you're not careful - those lead to actions. Actions make you tired. I have this on rather good authority from someone who once read it in a book.
Brandon Sanderson
#74. The woman spoke with a heavy western North Carolina accent, which I used to discredit her authority. Here was a person for whom the word 'pen' had two syllables. He people undoubtedly drank from clay jugs and hollered for Paw when the vittles were ready
so who was she to advise me on anything?
David Sedaris
#75. We need a regime change in this country ... If we launch a pre-emptive strike on Iraq we lose all moral authority.
Jesse Jackson
#76. Harner has impeccable credentials, both as an academic and as a practicing shaman. Without doubt (since the recent death of Mircea Eliade) the world's leading authority on shamanism.
Nevill Drury
#77. The plan was simple. Once on the Plain of Idavoll, we were going to follow the immortal strategy of Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh and "announce [our] presence with authority.
Kevin Hearne
#78. Stakeholders have varying levels of responsibility and authority when participating on a project. This level can change over the course of the project's life cycle. Their involvement may
Project Management Institute
#79. Messy love is better than none,
I guess. I am no authority
on sane living.
Margaret Atwood
#80. I'm not a food critic, and I'm not really an authority to write anything on food.
Alex Kapranos
#81. All grandeur, all power, and all subordination to authority rests on the executioner: he is the horror and the bond of human association. Remove this incomprehensible agent from the world and at that very moment order gives way to chaos, thrones topple and society disappears.
Joseph De Maistre
#82. We do not believe that if you cut back what government does you diminish its authority. On the contrary, a government that did less, and therefore did better, would strengthen its authority.
Margaret Thatcher
#83. Here, every private person is authorized to arm himself, and on the strength of this authority, I do not deny the inhabitants had a right to arm themselves at that time, for their defense, not for offense ...
John Adams
#84. Being an authority on paper does not immediately grant you authority over a group until it is earned by you and given by them.
A.J. Darkholme
#85. A titled leader relies heavily on positional power to get things done; a natural leader is able to mobilize others without the whip of formal authority.
Gary Hamel
#86. I think the approach to Islam as a tradition is helpful. Tradition helps us to focus on questions about authority and temporality, and about the language used in relation to the two.
Talal Asad
#87. Nobody on Earth can tell you how you should live your life. Nobody with any real authority anyway.
Dan Pearce
#88. The FCC can and indeed should do more to protect the Internet as the free and open environment people have come to expect and depend on - which is why we need to stand up to attacks on the FCC's authority.
Chellie Pingree
#89. An anarchist is like an undercover agent who plays the game of Reason in order to undercut the authority of Reason (Truth, Honesty, Justice and so on).
Paul Karl Feyerabend
#90. For the moment, I am relying on the authority of Cahir aep Ceallach, the only soldier in our company-and Cahir confirmed that winning battles by means of a rapid escape from the battlefield is permissible from the point of view of most military doctrines.
Andrzej Sapkowski
#91. I have a friend named Doris who argues, on good authority, that the single biggest cause of global warming is menopause.
Dave Barry
#92. The great monuments are raised up like dams, pitting the logic of majesty and authority against all the shady elements: it is in the form of cathedrals and palaces that Church and State speak and impose silence on the multitudes.
Georges Bataille
#93. In what appears to have been an unplanned quip, Wilberforce asked Huxley if he thought he was descended from an ape on his father's or mother's side. Huxley retorted that he would rather have simian relatives than claim kinship with a man who used his charisma and authority to quash free debate.
Jonathan Clements
#94. Your time is your life. You are absolutely the final authority on how you will use it.
Anne Katherine
#95. He clenched his small fist, bellowed his rage to the heavens, and resolved to never again recognize the authority of any man on earth.
Patricia Lockwood
#96. After all, if you're going to kick authority in the teeth, it helps to have a manic smile on your face and a middle finger outstretched. Or, at the very least, armed with an ironic turn of phrase. Just ask any well meaning punk. Or Bob Dylan.
Unknown
#97. I have said consistently in my 16-and-a-half years in the parliament, I have always supported the party room's decision and the party room is the ultimate authority on these matters. I don't expect that to change.
Nick Minchin
#98. There is no position which depends on clearer principles than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid.
Alexander Hamilton
#99. There can be no more reliable authority on earth than God's Word, the Bible. This timeless, trustworthy source of truth holds the key that unlocks life's mysteries. It alone provides us with the shelter we need in times of storm.
Charles R. Swindoll
