“Why is self-control, autonomy, such a threat to authority? Because the person who controls himself, who is his own master, has no need for an authority to be his master. This, then, renders authority unemployed. What is he to do if he cannot control others? To be sure, he could mind his own business. But this is a fatuous answer, for those who are satisfied to mind their own business do not aspire to become authorities.”
Revised edition, 1985. p. 175.
Ceremonial Chemistry (1974)
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Thomas Szasz70
Hungarian psychiatrist 1920–2012Related quotes
Pericles (-494–-429 BC) Greek statesman, orator, and general of Athens
Pericles commenting the participation of Athenian citizens in politics, as quoted in Models of Democracy (2006) by David Held, Stanford University Press, p. 14. Book II, chapter 40.
“He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.”
Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…
Variant: He who conquers others is strong; He who conquers himself is mighty.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
1830s, The American Scholar http://www.emersoncentral.com/amscholar.htm (1837)
Eric Hoffer book The True Believer
Section 10
The True Believer (1951), Part One: The Appeal of Mass Movements
Neil Fligstein (1951) American sociologist
Source: The transformation of corporate control, 1993, p. 10 ; As cited in: François L'Italien, BÉHÉMOTH CAPITAL. Contribution à une théorie dialectique de la financiarisation de la grande corporation. Université Laval, 2012. p. 147 (Many of the following quotes came from this source)
Roald Dahl (1916–1990) British novelist, short story writer, poet, fighter pilot and screenwriter
"Goodbye school" in Boy: Tales of Childhood (1984)
Auberon Herbert (1838–1906) British politician
The Principles of Voluntaryism and Free Life
Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena
“Thinking for Oneself,” H. Dirks, trans.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)
“An Anarchist is one who minds his own business.”
Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul
The Better Part (1901)
Context: I AM an Anarchist.
All good men are Anarchists.
All cultured, kindly men; all gentlemen; all just men are Anarchists.
Jesus was an Anarchist.
A Monarchist is one who believes a monarch should govern. A Plutocrat believes in the rule of the rich. A Democrat holds that the majority should dictate. An Aristocrat thinks only the wise should decide; while an Anarchist does not believe in government at all. Richard Croker is a Monarchist; Mark Hanna a Plutocrat; Cleveland a Democrat; Cabot Lodge an Aristocrat; William Penn, Henry D. Thoreau, Bronson Alcott and Walt Whitman were Anarchists. An Anarchist is one who minds his own business. An Anarchist does not believe in sending warships across wide oceans to kill brown men, and lay waste rice fields, and burn the homes of people who are fighting for liberty. An Anarchist does not drive women with babes at their breasts and other women with babes unborn, children and old men into the jungle to be devoured by beasts or fever or fear, or die of hunger, homeless, unhouseled and undone.
Destruction, violence, ravages, murder, are perpetrated by statute law..