Authority Quotes | Beyond Motive

top of page

Authority Quotes

"All my authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me."

Jesus Christ, Jewish Clergyman

Authority, Earth, Heaven

8

"The proper balance between individual liberty and central authority is a very ancient problem."

Arthur Keith, Scottish Scientist

Authority, Balance, Liberty

7

"Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself."

Golda Meir, Israeli Leader

5

"The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual's own reason and critical analysis."

Dalai Lama, Tibetan Leader

Authority, Reason, Rest

5

"We have one authority and one law and everyone has the responsibility to follow that law and that authority."

Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Statesman

Authority, Law, Responsibility

5

"In my day, the president ruled with authority before the law, but now all that is lost."

Kim Y. Sam, South Korean President

Authority, Day, Law, Now

3

"Authority forgets a dying king."

Alfred Lord Tennyson, English Poet

Authority, Dying

1

"And revolutions always mean the breakdown of old authority."

Hu Shih, Chinese Philosopher

1

"I've always had trouble with authority."

John Milius, American Director

Authority, Trouble

1

"Think for yourself and question authority."

Timothy Leary, American Educator

Authority, Question

"No authority is higher than reality."

Peter Nivio Zarlenga, American Author

Authority, Reality

"In some South Pacific cultures, a speaker holds a conch shell as a symbol of temporary position of authority. Leaders must understand who holds the conch that is, who should be listened to and when."

Max de Pree, American Executive

Authority, Leaders, Symbol

"In order to be a lieutenant, you've got to have authority in your voice. No matter how young your face looks, you've got to let your guys know that you're in charge."

Esai Morales, American Actor

Authority, Order, Voice

"I make no claim to be an authority on writing or illustrating for children."

Hugh Lofting, British Author

Authority, Children, Writing

"Liberty is the proper end and object of authority, and cannot subsist without it; and it is liberty to that which is good, just, and honest."

John Winthrop, English Celebrity

Authority, End, Liberty

"If an individual is born with the obligation to obey, who is born with the right to command?"

Tom G. Palmer, American Educator

Authority, Obligation, Right

"You can delegate authority, but you cannot delegate responsibility."

Byron Dorgan, American Politician

Authority, Responsibility

"I prize the conditions under which I have lived because they have permitted me to choose my opportunities, to inquire into such matters as interested me, and to publish what I believed to be true, uncontrolled by any central authority."

Arthur Keith, Scottish Scientist

"Your former Fathers the Spaniards have now no further Authority over you."

Zebulon Pike, American Soldier

Authority, Fathers, Now

"Everywhere, authority and tradition have to justify themselves in the face of questions."

Gustav Heinemann, German Politician

Authority, Questions, Tradition

"The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority."

Stanley Milgram, American Psychologist

Authority, Responsibility, Sense

"Conventional dogmas, even if endowed with the authority of an Aristotle - ancient or modern - must be tested vigorously. If they are found wanting, we need not bother with them. But if they are found to be substantially correct, we may not overlook them."

Norman Lamm, American Educator

"The nature of the kingdom must make you a God-carrier."

Sunday Adelaja, Nigerian Author

Authority, Kingdom, God, Carrier, Power

"I wasn't good with authority, went to lots of schools, didn't like the fact that there was no autonomy."

Nigella Lawson, British Journalist

Authority, Fact, Schools

"The ultimate court of appeal is observation and experiment... not authority."

Thomas Huxley, English Scientist

Authority, Court, Observation

"The burnt odor in Washington is from the disintegrating authority of the governing classes."

William Greider, American Author

Authority, Washington

"Celebrity distorts democracy by giving the rich, beautiful, and famous more authority than they deserve."

Maureen Dowd, American Journalist

Authority, Celebrity, Democracy, Famous

"If you notice that devil hinder your work or demons disturb your family etc., then address them and cast them out of your circumstances."

Sunday Adelaja, Nigerian Author

Authority, SpiritualWarfare, Faith, Victory

"Cameras in classrooms are no substitute for greater authority by parents and teachers."

Paul Weyrich, American Critic

Authority, Parents, Teachers

"The last job I applied for was to be a bus driver for the Chicago Transit Authority in 1957."

Vernon Jordan, American Businessman

Authority, Chicago, Job

"The Hamas organization is unwilling to honor the obligations that the Palestinian Authority has signed."

Moshe Katsav, Israeli Statesman

Authority, Honor

"We need to stop the erosion of parental authority."

Sonny Landham, American Actor

"Don't name it, as they say, because instantly you offer it to this peculiar authority."

Robert Creeley, American Poet

Authority, Name

"The authority of any governing institution must stop at its citizen's skin."

Gloria Steinem, American Activist

Authority, Skin

"God placed us on earth to be kings and priests."

Sunday Adelaja, Nigerian Author

Authority, Kings, Priests, Purpose

"God gave us His spirit, for us to have the power and authority to uproot lawlessness and establish God's righteousness."

Sunday Adelaja, Nigerian Author

Authority, Spirit, Power, Righteousness, Faith

"Distrust of authority should be the first civic duty."

Norman Douglas, British Writer

Authority, Distrust, Duty, First

"Scientists and scholars should constitute themselves as an international NGO of exceptional authority."

John Charles Polanyi, Canadian Scientist

Authority, Scientists

"He may not enter anywhere at the first, unless there be some one of the household who bid him to come, though afterwards he can come as he please."

Bram Stoker, Irish Writer

Authority, First, May

"That's why editors and publishers will never be obsolete: a reader wants someone with taste and authority to point them in the direction of the good stuff, and to keep the awful stuff away from their door."

Walter Jon Williams, American Writer

Authority, Direction, Editors, Taste

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

John Mellencamp, American Musician

Authority, Fight, School, Talking

"It is fundamentally important that Grasso resign so that the New York Stock Exchange can restore its moral authority."

Phil Angelides, American Politician

"The being cannot be termed rational or virtuous, who obeys any authority, but that of reason."

Mary Wollstonecraft, British Writer

Authority, Being, Reason

"Lawyer acted without authority from our band. He had no right to sell the Wallowa country."

Chief Joseph, American Leader

Authority, Country, Right

"I am the Roman Emperor, and am above grammar."

Emperor Sigismund, German Statesman

Authority, Grammar

"They don't want to be reminded that there is an authority higher than the authority of the state."

Roy Moore, American Judge

Authority, State, Want

"The dead and past stories that I have told again in divers fashions, are not set down without authority."

Marie de France, French Poet

Authority, Past

"The decisions of law courts should never be printed: in the long run, they form a counter authority to the law."

Denis Diderot, French Editor

Authority, Decisions, Law

"There is no necessity to separate the monarch from the mob; all authority is equally bad."

Oscar Wilde, Irish Dramatist

Authority, Mob, Necessity

"I grew up to always respect authority and respect those in charge."

Charles de Gaulle, French Leader

Authority, Respect

bottom of page