Quotes about authority (2823 quotes, page 17)

“The same critics who spend hundreds of pages discussing various peculiarities of the author's supposed nature often devote none to that much more significant person, the reader for whom he wrote. […] It is a failure that disqualifies a great deal of head-scratching and hypothesizing. It amounts to saying that the letter is more important than its recipient, the signal more important than the changing image created from it, the bait more important than the fish.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Endangered Species (1989), Introduction
Nonfiction

Failure , Nature , Fish , Change

“We are not this story's author, who fills time and eternity with His purpose. Yet His purpose is achieved in our duty, and our duty is fulfilled in service to one another. Never tiring, never yielding, never finishing, we renew that purpose today; to make our country more just and generous; to affirm the dignity of our lives and every life. This work continues. This story goes on. And an Angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Bush concluded his address with these lines, paraphrasing a quotation by John Page he had used earlier within it: We know the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm?. Page himself, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson (20 July 1776), was quoting a phrase from Ecclesiastes 9:11: I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to the intelligent, nor yet favour to men of knowledge; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
2000s, 2001, First inaugural address (January 2001)

Life , Angels , Time , Country

“Whenever an authority disappears, another one appears; and if a star sets, another one rises.”

Muhammad al-Mahdi (869–941) 12th and last Imam in Twelver Shia Islam

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.53 p. 185
General Quotes

Star , Appearance

“[Another significant aspect of the concept of growth is the distinction that Mesarovic and Pestel draw between "undifferentiated" and "organic" growth. The former type of growth, according to these authors, consists of mere replication of cells by cellular division, usually expotentially, with an increase in quantity alone. The latter type of growth] involves a process of differentiation, which means that various groups of cells begin to differ in structure and function… During and after differentiation the number of cells can still increase, and the organs grow in size, but while some organs grow, others might celine.”

Mihajlo D. Mesarovic (1928) Serbian academic

As cited in: Joel Jay Kassiola (1990) The Death of Industrial Civilization. p. 48
Mankind at the Turning Point, (1974)

Drawing

““I was ordained,” said the preacher. “No one ordains artists. They ordain themselves.”
Just as Taleswapper had expected. The preacher retreated to authority as soon as he feared his ideas could not stand on their own merit. Reasonable argument was impossible when authority became the arbiter.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Seventh Son (1987), Chapter 9.

Fear , Idea

“No authority can save us, no beliefs. If there is a God, all can find Him. No one needs to be told it is warm; all can discover it for themselves. So it should be with God. He should be a fact in the consciousness of every person.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

God , Personality

“The fabric of American Empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE. The streams of National power ought to flow immediately from that pure original fountain of all legitimate authority.”

Alexander Hamilton Federalist Papers

No. 22
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

People

“You have a voice, which has been perhaps been quiescent on matters economic because you have in the past deferred to the authority of the economist. There is no reason to remain quiet.”

Steve Keen (1953) Australian economist

Source: Debunking Economics - The Naked Emperor Of The Social Sciences (2001), Chapter 14, There Are Alternatives, p. 313

Past

“[[Management] has authority only as long as it performs.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1960s - 1980s, MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), Part 1, p. 301

“It is important that Tsenov's facts show that the Bulgarians have been in the Balkans since the 4th century, with which the author has even shaken the general opinion about the founding of the Bulgarian state in 679. by a handful of Mongol Bulgarians”

Gancho Tsenov (1870–1949) Bulgarian historian

quotations for him
Source: Prof. Mayer, “Indogermanische Forschungen”, Heft 2, 1933

“I don't pretend to be an author or to know anything about writing. I'm doing this simply because Dr Reilly asked me to, and somehow when Dr Reilly asks you to do a thing you don't like to refuse.”

Agatha Christie book Murder in Mesopotamia

Amy Leatheran
Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)

“Decisions of this Court do not have intrinsic authority.”

Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) American judge

Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 46, 59 (1947).
Judicial opinions

Decision

“This ruling has finally nailed down the coffin of what was from the beginning an ill-penned accord. This should make all those who authored and had a hand in writing the accord to get red in the face and immediately turn in their resignation from the government for trying to bungle our Constitution.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

The Official Website of the Senate of the Philippines http://www.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2008/1014_escudero1.asp
2008, Statement: on the MOA-AD Supreme Court Decision

“"You sound as if you question the authority and the decision of the Oracle, who said he should die."
"I do not. Why should I? But the Oracle did not ask me to carry out its decision." […]
"The Earth cannot punish me for obeying her mesenger," Okonkwo said. "A child's fingers are not scalded by a piece of hot yam which its mother puts into its palm."”

Chinua Achebe book Things Fall Apart

Source: Things Fall Apart (1958), Chapter 8 (p. 64)

Question , Decision

“A finished or even a competent reasoner is not the work of nature alone… education develops faculties which would otherwise never have manifested their existence. It is, therefore, as necessary to learn to reason before we can expect to be able to reason, as it is to learn to swim or fence, in order to attain either of those arts. Now, something must be reasoned upon, it matters not much what it is, provided that it can be reasoned upon with certainty. The properties of mind or matter, or the study of languages, mathematics, or natural history may be chosen for this purpose. Now, of all these, it is desirable to choose the one… in which we can find out by other means, such as measurement and ocular demonstration of all sorts, whether the results are true or not.
.. Now the mathematics are peculiarly well adapted for this purpose, on the following grounds:—
1. Every term is distinctly explained, and has but one meaning, and it is rarely that two words are employed to mean the same thing.
2. The first principles are self-evident, and, though derived from observation, do not require more of it than has been made by children in general.
3. The demonstration is strictly logical, taking nothing for granted except the self-evident first principles, resting nothing upon probability, and entirely independent of authority and opinion.
4. When the conclusion is attained by reasoning, its truth or falsehood can be ascertained, in geometry by actual measurement, in algebra by common arithmetical calculation. This gives confidence, and is absolutely necessary, if… reason is not to be the instructor, but the pupil.
5. There are no words whose meanings are so much alike that the ideas which they stand for may be confounded.
…These are the principal grounds on which… the utility of mathematical studies may be shewn to rest, as a discipline for the reasoning powers. But the habits of mind which these studies have a tendency to form are valuable in the highest degree. The most important of all is the power of concentrating the ideas which a successful study of them increases where it did exist, and creates where it did not. A difficult position or a new method of passing from one proposition to another, arrests all the attention, and forces the united faculties to use their utmost exertions. The habit of mind thus formed soon extends itself to other pursuits, and is beneficially felt in all the business of life.”

Augustus De Morgan (1806–1871) British mathematician, philosopher and university teacher (1806-1871)

Source: On the Study and Difficulties of Mathematics (1831), Ch. I.

Life , Children , Truth , Education

“But now, coming to your shameless assertion that ministers of the altar should be allowed to marry, I consider it superfluous to unsheathe the sword of my own words against you, since we see the armed forces of the whole Church and the massed array of all the holy Fathers ready to resist you. And where so great a host of heavenly troops opposes you, one can only wonder that your novel and rash attempt at doctrine does not submit when confronted by such authority.”

Peter Damian (1007–1072) reformist monk

Letter 141:7, To the Chaplains of Duke Godfrey of Tuscany. A.D. 1066.
The Fathers of the Church, Medieval Continuation, 2004, Letters 121- 150, Owen J. Blum, Irven Michael Resnick, trs., Catholic University Press; ISBN 081321372X, ISBN 9780813213729, vol. 6, p. 115 http://books.google.com/books?id=cD_swYLRJOUC&pg=PA115&dq=%22but+now+coming+to+your+shameless+assertion+that+ministers+of+the+altar+should+be+allowed+to+marry%22&hl=en&ei=xIPDTI7dEoP-8Ab59snaBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22but%20now%20coming%20to%20your%20shameless%20assertion%20that%20ministers%20of%20the%20altar%20should%20be%20allowed%20to%20marry%22&f=false

“The Holy Ghost carries on the whole Christian system in His truth. Not a baptism, not a marriage, not a Sacrament can be administered but by the Holy Ghost … There is no authority civil or religious: There can be no legitimate government but what is administered by the Holy Ghost. There can be no salvation without it. All without it is rebellion and perdition, or in more orthodox words damnation.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Adams as misquoted by David Barton on Glenn Beck (Fox News) on , shown in the film The Hidden Faith of the Founding Fathers (2010), at 2:21:32. Without the ellipses and substituted words, this section of Adams's letter of (21 December 1809) http://books.google.com/books?id=84oTAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA248 reads:
But my Friend there is something very serious in this Business. The Holy Ghost carries on the whole Christian system in this earth. Not a Baptism, not a Marriage not a Sacrament can be administered but by the Holy Ghost, who is transmitted from age to age by laying the hands of the Bishops on the heads of Candidates for the Ministry. In the same manner as the holy Ghost is transmitted from Monarch to Monarch by the holy oil in the vial at Rheims which was brought down from Heaven by a Dove and by that other Phyal which I have seen in the Tower of London. There is no Authority civil or religious: there can be no legitimate Government but what is administered by this Holy Ghost. There can be no salvation without it. All, without it is Rebellion and Perdition, or in more orthodox words Damnation. Although this is all Artifice and Cunning in the secret original in the heart, yet they all believe it so sincerely that they would lay down their Lives under the Ax or the fiery Fagot for it. Alas the poor weak ignorant Dupe human Nature. There is so much King Craft, Priest Craft, Gentlemens Craft, Peoples Craft, Doctors Craft, Lawyers Craft, Merchants Craft, Tradesmens Craft, Labourers Craft and Devils Craft in the world, that it seems a desperate and impracticable Project to undeceive it.
Do you wonder that Voltaire and Paine have made Proselytes? Yet there was as much subtlety, Craft and Hypocrisy in Voltaire and Paine and more too than in Ignatius Loyola.
This Letter is so much in the tone of my Friend the Abby Raynal and the Grumblers of the last age, that I pray you to burn it. I cannot copy it.
Your Prophecy my dear Friend has not become History as yet. I have no Resentment or Animosity against the Gentleman and abhor the Idea of blackening his Character or transmitting him in odious Colours to Posterity.
But I write with difficulty and am afraid of diffusing myself in too many Correspondences. If I should receive a Letter from him however I should not fail to acknowledge and answer it.
Misattributed

Marriage , Truth

“Imagine using as an authority in the matter of marriage the opinion of a celibate priest!”

Joseph Lewis (1889–1968) American activist

The Philosophy of Atheism

Marriage , Imagination

“If there be such a principle as justice, or natural law, it is the principle, or law, that tells us what rights were given to every human being at his birth; what rights are, therefore, inherent in him as a human being, necessarily remain with him during life; and, however capable of being trampled upon, are incapable of being blotted out, extinguished, annihilated, or separated or eliminated from his nature as a human being, or deprived of their inherent authority or obligation.

On the other hand, if there be no such principle as justice, or natural law, then every human being came into the world utterly destitute of rights; and coming into the world destitute of rights, he must necessarily forever remain so. For if no one brings any rights with him into the world, clearly no one can ever have any rights of his own, or give any to another. And the consequence would be that mankind could never have any rights; and for them to talk of any such things as their rights, would be to talk of things that never had, never will have, and never can have any existence.”

Lysander Spooner (1808–1887) Anarchist, Entrepreneur, Abolitionist

Section IV, p. 12–13
Natural Law; or The Science of Justice (1882), Chapter II. The Science of Justice (Continued)

Life , World , Justice , Law

“If no one is to be accounted as born into a superior station, if there is to be no ruling class, and if all possess rights which can neither be bartered away nor taken from them by any earthly power, it follows as a matter of course that the practical authority of the Government has to rest on the consent of the governed. While these principles were not altogether new in political action, and were very far from new in political speculation, they had never been assembled before and declared in such a combination. But remarkable as this may be, it is not the chief distinction of the Declaration of Independence. The importance of political speculation is not to be under-estimated, as I shall presently disclose. Until the idea is developed and the plan made there can be no action.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

Idea

“!-- A motion was made and seconded, that the report of the Committee made on Monday last, be amended, so far as to add the following to the first article therein mentioned, viz.: ' -->And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of time press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; or to raise standing armies, unless when necessary for the defence of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions.”

Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher

Rejected resolution for a clause to add to the first article of the U.S. Constitution, in the debates of the Massachusetts Convention of 1788 (6 February 1788); this has often been attributed to Adams, but he is nowhere identified as the person making the resolution in Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Held in the year 1788 And which finally ratified the Constitution of the United States. (1856) p. 86. https://archive.org/details/debatesandproce00peirgoog<!-- Printed by the Resolves of the Legislature, 1856. Boston: William White, Printer of the Commonwealth.
Variant: The said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of The United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms...
As quoted in Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (1850) edited by Peirce & Hale
Disputed

People , Search , Time , Personality

“The great gain would be freedom of thought. Women, more than men, are bound by tradition and authority. What the father, the brother, the doctor, and the minister have said has been received undoubtingly. Until women throw off this reverence for authority they will not develop. When they do this, when they come to truth through their investigations, when doubt leads them to discovery, the truth which they get will be theirs, and their minds will work on and on unfettered.”

Maria Mitchell (1818–1889) American astronomer

Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters and Journals (illustrated) by Maria Mitchell, 1896, p. 186.

Women , Men , Truth , Freedom

“The Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Justice should immediately and without delay get in touch with their counterparts and demand the attendance of the four witnesses. Such demand is covered by the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) which calls not only for Respect for Law but the obligation to make available the US personnel for investigative or judicial proceedings. As worded in Article V, "US military authorities shall, upon formal notification by the Philippine authorities and without delay, make such personnel available to those authorities in time for any investigative or judicial proceedings." The VFA clearly states that the Philippines has criminal jurisdiction over US soldiers involved in a crime in the country, and it is a matter of invoking it with speed and conviction. The VFA, undoubtedly, is one sided and as such we must always insist and be vigilant with what is accorded us as a matter of sovereign right in that treaty. This is incident calls for the Philippine authorities’ and the Filipinos’ righteous indignation to fight for custody of the suspect and demand for the physical availability of the four American witnesses. We cannot just sit idly by and watch while our laws are being subverted. If we cannot defend, protect nor assist our fellow Filipino right here in our own soil, what chilling message do we get out there to our people and especially to those who are outside Philippine soils? We cannot begrudge the US for acting to protect the interests of its nationals and its interests. Our own officials should also, with the same fervor, do the same. This is why I continue my call for the review of the VFA for clearer, stronger and stricter stipulations which are mutually beneficial to both parties in every step of the way.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Escudero, F. [Francis]. (2014, December 16). Retrieved from Official Facebook Page of Francis Escudero https://www.facebook.com/senchizescudero/posts/10152798060815610/
2014, Facebook

People , Justice , Law , Way

“Truth is "Mormonism." God is the author of it.”

Joseph Smith, Jr. book History of the Church

History of the Church, 3:297 (20 March 1839)
1830s

God , Truth

“l don't know what Nordic art is worth in other people's minds.... but in today's cosmopolitan art world it doesn't figure at all... Nordic art is dangerous. It compresses all its power inside ourselves. It is not a hedonistic or sensuous art. It neither claims to be objectively intelligible, nor does it deal in clear and conscious symbols. The Danish author Jakob Knudsen hit on something important when he said that Nordic art has mood and works on the mood more than on the senses or the understanding..”

Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist

as quoted on the website of the Jorn Museum 'Articles' by Jorn http://www.museumjorn.dk/en/article_presentation.asp?AjrDcmntId=255,
1959 - 1973, Alpha and Omega', (1963–64)

People , World , Art , Intelligence

“Johnnie, the nice thing about citing God as an authority is that you can prove anything you set out to prove. It’s just a matter of selecting the proper postulates, then insisting that your postulates are ‘inspired.’ Then no one can possibly prove that you are wrong.”

Robert A. Heinlein book If This Goes On

If This Goes On— (p. 432)
Short fiction, The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

God

“It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well-known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal palace, while he is still organising and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representatives of the King-Emperor. Such a spectacle can only increase the unrest in India and the danger to which white people there are exposed. It can only encourage all the forces which are hostile to British authority.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Council of the West Essex Conservative Association (23 February 1931) on Gandhi's meeting with the Viceroy of India, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 390
The 1930s

Hostility , People

“Let Massachusetts continue to regard with the greatest solicitude the well-being of her people. By prescribed law, by authorized publicity, by informed public opinion, let her continue to strive to provide that all conditions under which her citizens live are worthy of the highest faith of man. Healthful housing, wholesome food, sanitary working conditions, reasonable hours, a fair wage for a fair day's work, opportunity — full and free, justice — speedy and impartial, and at a cost within the reach of all, are among the objects not only to be sought, but made absolutely certain and secure.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Law and Order (1920)

People , Health , Faith , Justice

“In compliance with the Supreme Court ruling on the Disbursement Acceleration Program, a new general provision on the “Meaning of Augmentation” is proposed by your committee in Sec. 69 which states that savings cannot be used to augment a non-existent P/A/P through the use of an appropriation not otherwise authorized by the subject GAA, and that the existence of an appropriation for an allotment class, whether for Personal Services, MOOE, or Capital Outlays, in a P/A/P is necessary for purposes of augmentation.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2014, Speech: Sponsorship Speech for the FY 2015 National Budget

Personality

“The preface to the first edition of this book… shows that in 1958 the classification ideas in it were felt to controversial, needing to be championed. A few years before, the had issued a memorandum proclaiming "the need for a faceted classification as the basis of all methods of information retrieval'. As part-author of this memorandum, I must now judge the claim to have been too bold, even brash.”

Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) British information theorist

Preface to third edition; Partly cited in: Vanda Broughton (2011) " Brian Vickery and the Classification Research Group: the legacy of faceted classification http://www.iskouk.org/conf2011/papers/broughton.pdf" p. 6
Classification and indexing in science (1958)

Books , Idea , Parting

“Magic and art tend to share a lot of the same language. They both talk about evocation, invocation, and conjuring. If you’re trying to conjure a character, then maybe you should treat that with the respect that you would if you were trying to conjure a demon. Because if an image of a god is a god, then in some sense the image of a demon is a demon. I’m thinking of people like Malcolm Lowry, the exquisite author of Under the Volcano. There are kabbalistic demons that are lurking all the way through Under the Volcano, and I assume they were probably similar forces to the ones that eventually overwhelmed Lowry’s life, such as the drinking and the madness. When I hear alcoholics talk about having their demons, I think that they’re probably absolutely literally correct.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

The Believer interview (2013)

Life , God , People , Alcohol

“Francis Bacon, in his New Atlantis, could charge his elite scientists in Salomon’s House with practicing self-censorship to avoid publicizing dangerous knowledge. Here is how the Father of Salomon’s House describes their practice: “We have consultations, which of the inventions and experiences which we have discovered shall be published, and which not: and take all a oath of secrecy for the concealing of those which we think fit to keep secret: though some of those we do reveal sometime to the State, and some not.” Bacon, the first prophet of the new relation between science and society and of the “conquest of nature for the relief of man’s estate,” knew better than we that knowledge is dangerous, that publication is a public and politically relevant act, and that self-censorship on the part of scientists is necessary and desirable. The passage is also remarkable for its wonderful ambiguity regarding whether scientists or the State has ultimate authority over dangerous knowledge”

Leon R. Kass (1939) American academic

Forbidding Science: Some Beginning Reflections (2006)

Secret , Nature , Knowledge , Thinking

“The Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal, and in 1776, that's exactly what they meant. Women could not vote, women could not own property, and blacks were considered property. After 200 years of enlightenment, we have realized that gender and race are inappropriate distinctions for determining who has individual rights. Anytime Gov gives you permission they let you know that you have permission by giving you a permit or a license. If you have a marriage license, what permission do you have to do now that you did not have permission to do before, who gave you that permission, and who gave them the authority to give you that permission in the first place?”

Michael Badnarik (1954) American software engineer

Source: Libertarian Party National Convention (2004)

Women , Men , Marriage

“Galileo had the experience of beholding the heavens as they actually are for perhaps the first time, and wherever he looked he found evidence to support the Copernican system against the Ptolemaic, or at least weaken the authority of the ancients. This shattering experience—of observing the depths of the universe, of being the first mortal to know what the heavens are actually like—made so deep a an impression… that it is only by considering the events of 1609… that one can understand the subsequent direction of his life.”

I. Bernard Cohen (1914–2003) American historian of science

I. Bernard Cohen,
The Birth of a New Physics (1959)

Life , Understanding , Support , Universe

“Women's studies needed a syllabus and so invented a canon overnight. It puffed up clunky, mundane contemporary women authors into Oz-like, skywriting dirigibles. Our best women students are being force-fed an appalling diet of cant, drivel and malarkey.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992), Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders : Academe in the Hour of the Wolf, p. 243

Women , Study

“The Internet is a big boon to academic research. Gone are the days spent in dusty library stacks digging for journal articles. Many articles are available free to the public in open-access journal or as preprints on the authors’ website.”

Nick Bostrom (1973) Swedish philosopher

"Nick Bostrom on the future, transhumanism and the end of the world" at Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (22 January 2007) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/1142/ (ieet.org).

“A few years ago a majority of the States had adopted prohibition or rigid restrictions on the traffic in intoxicating liquor. But other States did not cooperate in advancing this policy, and ultimately by national action it was extended to all the Union. By failing to meet the requirements of a national demand the States became deprived of the power to act. If questions which the States will not fairly settle on their own account shall have to be settled for them by the Federal authority, it will only be because some States will have refused to discharge obvious duties.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Reign of Law (1925)

Question

“"Thy sun," says Isaiah to Jerusalem, " shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all righteous; they shall inherit the land forever." Such is the type of a free people.
Our northern ancestors worshipped this tri-une Deity; Odin, the Almighty Father; Frea, his wife, emblem of universal matter; and Thor, his son, the mediator. But above all these was the Supreme God, "the author of everything that existeth, the Eternal, the Ancient, the Living and Awful Being, the Searcher into concealed things, the Being that never changeth." In the Temple of Eleusis (a sanctuary lighted only by a window in the roof, and representing the universe), the images of the Sun, Moon, and Mercury, were represented.”

Albert Pike book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry

Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. I : Apprentice, The Twelve-Inch Rule and Common Gavel, p. 1

God , People , Light , Universe

“For it would now seem that the policy and vanity of the Court equally concurred in endeavouring to keep out of sight whatever can manifest our pre-eminence, which they undoubtedly feel, but have not yet learned to make the proper use of. It is, however, in vain to attempt arresting the progress of human knowledge. I am, indeed, very much mistaken if all the authority and address of the Tartar Government will be able much longer to stifle the energies of their Chinese subjects. Scarcely a year now passes without an insurrection in some of their provinces. it is true they are soon suppressed, but their frequency is a strong symptom of the fever within. The paroxysm is repelled, but the disease is not cured.”

George Macartney (1737–1806) British statesman, colonial administrator and diplomat

Our First Ambassador to China (Biography, 1908)

Disease , Feeling , Knowledge , Strong

“Under Sharia law, apostasy is a crime punishable by death. So, reactions to non-belief include ostracization, severance of family support, abandonment, and other forms of maltreatment. In a society where the family is virtually everything in terms of social support and sustenance, family sanction is indeed the worse form of punishment for non-belief. The science is there. The scientists are there. But the popularizing scientific will is not. This is because scientists are afraid of backlash from religious establishments. Scientists do not want to disseminate scientific ideas in a way that they could be accused of blasphemy. Religious authorities are still very influential in Nigeria and will go to any length to suppress and neutralize any one promoting science in a way that puts religious claims into question. Science is still within the cocoon and control of religious authorities. Religion in Nigeria has yet to attain that liberalized state.”

Leo Igwe (1970) Nigerian human rights activist

An Interview with Dr. Leo Igwe — Founder, Nigerian Humanist Movement (2017)

Death , Family , Religion , Law

“He who obeys God needs no other authority.”

Petr Chelčický book The Net of Faith

The Net of Faith (c. 1443)

God

“The laws of Rome had wisely divided public power among a large number of magistracies, which supported, checked and tempered each other. Since they all had only limited power, every citizen was qualified for them, and the people — seeing many persons pass before them one after the other — did not grow accustomed to any in particular. But in these times the system of the republic changed. Through the people the most powerful men gave themselves extraordinary commissions — which destroyed the authority of the people and magistrates, and placed all great matters in the hands of one man, or a few.”

Montesquieu book Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline

Source: Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence/11 - Wikisource, fr.wikisource.org, fr, 2018-07-07 https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Consid%C3%A9rations_sur_les_causes_de_la_grandeur_des_Romains_et_de_leur_d%C3%A9cadence/11,
Source: Montesquieu, Causes of the Greatness of the Romans, 2017-11-09, 2018-07-07 https://web.archive.org/web/20171109014358/http://www.constitution.org/cm/ccgrd_l.htm,
Source: Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline (1876), Chapter XI.

Men , People , Law , Support

“Eyes—the head’s chief of police. They watch and make mental notes. A blind person is like a city abandoned by the authorities. On sad days they cry. In these carefree times they weep only from tender emotions.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

A Brief Human Anatomy (1883)

Sadness , Time , Personality , Cry

“If the pages of this book contain some successful verse, the reader must excuse me the discourtesy of having usurped it first. Our nothingness differs little; it is a trivial and chance circumstance that you should be the reader of these exercises and I their author.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

"To the Reader" ["A quien leyere"], preface to Fervor of Buenos Aires [Fervor de Buenos Aires] (1923)

Books , Exercises , Chance , Success

“They did not deny the existence of authority. They recognized it and undertook to abide by it, and through obedience to it secure their freedom. They made their appeal and rested their cause not merely upon earthly authority, but in the very first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence asserted that they proposed 'to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them.' And as they closed that noble document in which they submitted their claims to the opinions of mankind they again revealed what they believed to be the ultimate source of authority by stating that they were also 'appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of' their 'intentions.'.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Authority and Religious Liberty (1924)

God , World , Law , Nature

“In a paper belonging to the Spectator there is a short description of a country wake. "I found," says the author, "a ring of cudgel-players, who were breaking one another's heads in order to make some impression on their mistresses' hearts."…to this he adds another curious pastime, as a kind of Christmas gambol, which he had seen also; that is, a yawning match for a Cheshire cheese; the sport began about midnight, when the whole company were disposed to be drowsy; and he that yawned the widest, and at the same time most naturally, so as to produce the greatest number of yawns from the spectators, obtained the cheese.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 369
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Country wakes

Nature , Sport , Time , Heart

“I have no doubt that if an actual ticking bomb situation were to arise, our law enforcement authorities would torture. The real debate is whether such torture should take place outside of our legal system or within it. The answer to this seems clear: If we are to have torture, it should be authorized by the law.”

Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) American lawyer, author

"Is There a Torturous Road to Justice?", The Los Angles Times, 2001-11-08

Law

“For years they have known they are in the presence of something stronger than they—a mystery that renders them powerless. Already constellated is a "god consciousness"—awesome and holy—that has nothing to do with the church or with groups. They know they have to engage in a different arena of reality. That arena is the psyche. By virtue of their temperament, training, consciousness, these women are blessed (or cursed) with an introspective nature, an exploring mind, an invincible curiosity about themselves which connects them to their own inner microscope. For better or for worse, they are convinced that the solution to their lives is in submission not to an externally imposed authority which they cannot understand, but to a truth that abides in themselves.”

Marion Woodman (1928–2018) Canadian writer

Source: The Pregnant Virgin (1985), p. 99

Women , God , Truth , Understanding

“Our constitutional history started with the States retaining all powers of sovereignty unimpaired, save those conferred upon the National Government. The evolution of the constitutional system has consisted largely in determining the line of demarcation between State and national authority. The cases involved are many and complicated, but there is a fairly good popular understanding of this continuing struggle between these contending sovereignties. Because of better communication and transportation, the constant tendency has been to more and more social and economic unification. The present continent-wide union of forty-eight States is much closer than was the original group of thirteen States.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Reign of Law (1925)

History , Communication , Understanding

“The new man, wishing to enjoy his independence, needed a God with limited powers, a God whose authority was regulated by fundamental laws, so that the sinner, when summoned before the throne of the last judgment, might plead his cause, documents in hand.”

Bernard Groethuysen (1880–1946) French literary historian, translator and writer

Source: The Bourgeois: Catholicism vs. Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century France (1927), p. 90

God , Law

“The most powerful presentations were based on legal precedents, especially Calvin's Case (1608), which, it was claimed, proved on the authority of Coke and Bacon that subjects of the King are by no means necessarily subjects of Parliament.”

Bernard Bailyn book The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

Source: The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967), Chapter V, TRANSFORMATION, p. 225

“I got used to dealing with groups of boys and getting on with life in unpleasant circumstances and being smart and funny and subversive at the expense of authority.”

Eric Idle (1943) British comedian, actor, singer and writer

On his childhood years in a boarding school. The Pythons' Autobiography of the Pythons (2003) by Bob McCabe.

Life , Boy

“But from a deeper perspective (speaking both objectively and subjectively), thoughts simply arise unauthored and yet author our actions.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Source: 2010s, Free Will (2012), p. 32

“The Constitution does not protect the sovereignty of States for the benefit of the States or state governments as abstract political entities, or even for the benefit of the public officials governing the States. To the contrary, the Constitution divides authority between federal and state governments for the protection of individuals.”

Sandra Day O'Connor (1930) Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Striking down the "Take-Title" provision of the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act in New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992).

“It is a fascinating story to those who care for their Bible. It is the life-history of the greatest of books, diversified by interesting episodes which appeal to our human sympathies; and we venture to think that the result is reassuring. It may be disturbing to some to part with the conception of a Bible handed down through the ages without alteration and in unchallenged authority; but it is a higher ideal to face the facts, to apply the best powers with which God has endowed us to the solutions of the problems which they present to us; and it reassuring at the end to find that the general result of all these discoveries and all this study is to strengthen the proof of the authenticity of the Scripture, and our conviction that we have in our hands, in substantial integrity, the veritable Word of God.”

Frederic G. Kenyon (1863–1952) British palaeographer and biblical and classical scholar

Source: The Story Of The Bible, Chapter X, The Position Today, p. 144

Life , God , Books , Age

“The writer has found, in analyzing and diagnosing organization and accounting work, that charts can express more on one page than is sometimes expressed in several chapters of writing, and has been the author and originator of many methods of charting industrial expressions. It is necessary, as a first step, for analytical and other purposes, to make a chart expressing all of the relations governing the organization of a business so as to show the very foundation upon which all authorities, accounting, and business transactions are based and conducted. There have been more failures scored both personally and financially for lack of these very elements in a business than by reason of any other one thing. As well try to build a house without a foundation as to try to conduct a business, especially a manufacturing business, without proper organization.”

Clinton Edgar Woods (1863) American engineer

Source: Organizing a factory (1905), p. 23-24

Failure , Business , Housing , Personality

“That dualism of the Church and the Chapel taken together has been one of the most potent influences in the life of our country. The one fostering, perhaps, more than the other, the respect for authority and tradition and the sense of historical continuity; the other laying its main emphasis on individual obedience to eternal law. They both have defects of their qualities, but they have both been, and are, and will be great social forces with great political consequences. Both at their best penetrate life with serious purpose, and are in constant war with that spirit of secularism which finds its paradise in idleness and frivolity, with which no country can ever prosper.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Cornwall (23 June 1927), quoted in Our Inheritance (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938), p. 55.
1927

Life , War , Law , Sense

“In oral culture, there is no separation between the poet and the poem. The author is a performer who vocalizes the words. Creation and performance are inseparably linked. Without writing, a ‘text’ has no existence outside the auditory performance”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

10
Essays, Can Poetry Matter? (1991), Poetry as Enchantment (2015)

“It seems never to have occurred to Lenin that the root of these troubles lay in the fact that the whole system was based, as he constantly emphasized, on force and not on law. He demanded that people be imprisoned right and left for inefficiency, and then wondered why they were afraid to take decisions and referred them higher up whenever they could. He demanded vigilant supervision and exhaustive records, and yet was astonished at the amount of "pen-pushing". His statement that "socialism equals Soviet power plus electrification" is often quoted; less often his statement, just after the Revolution, that "what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything" (Meeting of the Central Executive Committee, 17 November 1917; Works, vol. 26, p. 288). He created a system in which, depending on the whim of a local party or police authority, any criticism might be regarded as counter-revolutionary and expose its author to imprisonment or death, and at the same time he urged the working people to be fearless in their criticism of the state apparatus.”

Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas

Source: Main Currents Of Marxism (1978), Three Volume edition, Volume II, The Golden Age, pp. 489-90

Death , People , Law , Quotes

“The establishing of the dominion of God on earth, the abolishing of the dominion of man, the taking away of sovereignty from the usurper to revert it to God, and the bringing about of the enforcement of the Divine Law (Shari’ah) and the abolition of man-made laws cannot be achieved only through preaching. Those who have usurped the authority of God and are oppressing God’s creatures are not going to give up their power merely through preaching; if it had been so, the task of establishing God’s religion in the world would have been very easy for the Prophets of God. This is contrary to the evidence from the history of the Prophets and the story of the struggle of the true religion, spread over generations.”

Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966) Egyptian author, educator, Islamic theorist, poet, and politician

Source: Ma'alim fi'l-Tariq (Signposts on the Road, or Milestones) (1964), Ch. 4, Jihad in the cause of Allah, p. 68.

God , World , Religion , Law

“Moreover, a true Christian will not ascribe any prosperity to his own diligence, industry, or good fortune, but he will acknowledge that God is the author of it.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Page 43.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

God

“My endeavour has been to render the sense of my author as nearly as possible, which could never be done merely by translating his words.”

John Hoole (1727–1803) British translator

Preface to Jerusalem Delivered, an Heroic Poem; translated from the Italian of Torquato Tasso (1764), p. xix

Sense

“To say that an author is a reader or a reader an author, to see a book as a human being or a human being a book, to describe the world as text or a text as the world, are ways of naming the readers craft.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

Metaphors of Reading, p. 168.
A History of Reading (1996)

Books , World , Way

“In His discourses, His miracles, His parables, His sufferings, His resurrection, He gradually raises the pedestal of His humanity before the world, but under a cover, until the shaft reaches from the grave to the heavens, whenHe lifts the curtain, and displays the figure of a man on a throne, for the worship of the universe; and clothing His church with His own power, He authorizes it to baptize and to preach remission of sins in His own name.”

Edward Thomson (1810–1870) American bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 77.

World , Suffering , Universe , Clothes

“I'm not sure I'd want to pick the brain of any author. Some writers have a lot to say about what they write and why they write it. Others don't. I've met a lot of writers who have an awful lot to say in the bar, but whose books seem curiously empty.”

Michael Marshall Smith (1965) British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer

Associated Content Interview (October 23, 2006)

Books

“Let us turn now to the most elementary principle of just war theory, universality. Those who cannot accept this principle should have the decency to keep silent about matters of right and wrong, or just war. If we can rise to this level, some obvious questions arise: for example, have Cuba and Nicaragua been entitled to set off bombs in Washington, New York, and Miami in self-defense against ongoing terrorist attack? Particularly so when the perpetrators are well known and act with complete impunity, sometimes in brazen defiance of the highest international authorities, so that the cases are far clearer than Afghanistan? If not, why not?”

Noam Chomsky book Hegemony or Survival

Hegemony or Survival, 2003.
Quotes 2000s, Hegemony or Survival (2003)

War , Question , Universe

“The shift to the pre‐job pattern of self‐employment in the informal sector promises to eliminate this pathological culture in which one secures his livelihood by winning the approval of an authority figure. In my opinion, therefore, we should take advantage of the opportunity to eliminate this pattern of livelihood, instead of—as Ford proposes—replacing the boss with a bureaucrat as the authority figure on whose whims our livelihood depends. The sooner we destroy the idea of the “job” as a primary source of livelihood, and replace the idea of work as something we’re given with the idea of work as something we do, the better. And then we should sow the ground with salt.”

Kevin Carson (1963) American academic

Homebrew Industrial Revolution (2010), Chapter 3
Homebrew Industrial Revolution (2010)

Idea , Dependency

“In Islam, there is no priesthood, and no intermediary between the creature and The Creator; but every Muslim from the ends of earth or in the paths of the sea has the ability of himself to approach his Lord without priest or minister. Nor again can the Muslim administrator derive his authority from any papacy, or from Heaven; but he derives it solely from the Muslim community. Similarly, he derives his principles of administration from the religious law, which is universal in its understanding and application and before which all men come everywhere as equals.”

Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966) Egyptian author, educator, Islamic theorist, poet, and politician

Source: Social Justice in Islam (1953), p. 30

Men , Law , Communication , Understanding

“(The author has been writing of people striving for “this fleeting sense of being part of something greater and more unknowable than themselves”)
And entitlement strips this away from us. The gravity of entitlement sucks all attention inward, toward ourselves, causing us to feel as though we are at the center of all of the problems in the universe, that we are the one suffering all of the injustices, that we are the one who deserves greatness over all others.”

Mark Manson (1984) American writer and blogger

Source: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (2016), Chapter 9, “...And Then You Die” (p. 206)

People , Feeling , Problem , Sense

“Marketing Management: A Contemporary Perspective provides a fresh new perspective on marketing from some of the leading researchers in Europe. The book offers students and practitioners the comprehensive coverage they need to make the right decisions to create and implement highly successful marketing strategies. This exciting new book combines scholarly international research with relevant and contemporary examples from markets and brands across the world.
The authors combine their experience as researchers and industry consultants to provide the conceptual and theoretical underpinning of marketing and empirical research, helping students to understand how marketing concepts can be applied and implemented. The book covers a full range of industries including business-to-customer, business-to-business, services marketing, retailing and international marketing from companies around the globe.”

Christian Homburg (1962) German academic

Abstract 2009 edition.
Marketing management: A contemporary perspective, 2003

Books , World , Understanding , Business

“We're talking about terrorism carried out in the name of Islam, by Muslims, and justified using their holy scripture. But apparently it's got nothing to do with Islam. Well, I'm sorry, but just because every Muslim doesn't support it doesn't mean it's not Islamic. People say you can't judge Islam by its followers, but that's like saying you can't judge a football team by its results. Islam is its followers. Because there's no central authority the Koran is open to interpretation by men, who, being human, will always interpret to suit their own cultural prejudices. So Islam is its followers. It's a representation of how they interpret their holy book. And therefore, the only way it can be judged is by their behaviour.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"Sharia fiasco" (10 February 2008) http://youtube.com/watch?v=mM2dC1iWzww
2008

Men , People , Books , Way

“[I]magination… is the faculty… the common root from which science and literature… spring and grow and flourish together. …the great ages of science are the great ages of all the arts… [P]owerful minds have taken fire from one another… without asking… to tie their imagination to falling balls or a haunted island. …When Galileo was looking through his telescope at the moon, Shakespeare was writing The Tempest and all Europe was in ferment, from Johannes Kepler to Peter Paul Rubens, and from the first table of logarithms by John Napier to the Authorized version of the Bible.”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

"The Reach of Imagination" (1967)

Age , Art , Imagination , Spring

“I will have achieved my aim if, by the end of this book, you demand that people produce good reasons for what they believe—not only in religion, but in any area in which evidence can be brought to bear. I’ll have achieved my aim when people devote as much effort to choosing a system of belief as they do to choosing their doctor. I’ll have achieved my aim If the public stops awarding special authority about the universe and the human condition to preachers, imams, and clerics simply because they are religious figures. And above all, I’ll have achieved my aim if, when you hear someone described as a “person of faith,” you see it as criticism rather than praise.”

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. xxii

People , Books , Faith , Religion

“I propose to use whatever authority exists in the office of the President to end segregation in the District of Columbia, including the Federal Government, and any segregation in the Armed Forces.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/all_about_ike/quotes.html (2 February 1953)
1950s, Annual Message to Congress (1953)

“That author, however, who has thought more than he has read, read more than he has written, and written more than he published, if he does not command success, has at least deserved it.”

Charles Caleb Colton (1777–1832) British priest and writer

Preface
Lacon (1820)

Reading , Success

“It is essentially to the very idea and concept of organization that we there must be a process, formal in character, through which the supreme co-ordinating authority operates throughout the whole structure of the organized body. This process is not an abstraction; it is a tangible reality observable in every organization. It appears in a form so distinct and characteristic that it practically names itself, — hence the term Scalar Process.”

James D. Mooney (1884–1957) American businessman

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 31

Idea , Reality , Appearance

“If a women is capable, deserving of a position of authority, then her gender should not be an issue. She should be judged on the basis of her ability and her competence and not because she is a woman.”

Sangeeta Niranjan Fijian businesswoman

Interview with the Fiji Times, 18 September 2005

Women

“But whatever grounds I supposed there were for authorizing such expectations, I now find they were vain and nugatory. The cloud thickens, and the prospects are daily growing darker. There is now no hope of cash. The agents are loaded with heavy debts, and perplexed with half-finished contracts, and the people clamorous for their pay, refusing to proceed in the public business unless their present demands are discharged. The constant run of expenses, incident to the department, presses hard for further credit., or immediate supplies of money. To extend one, is impossible; to obtain the other, we have not the least prospect. I see nothing, therefore, but a general check, if not an absolute stop, to the progress of every branch of business in the whole department, I have little reason to hope that, with the most favorable disposition in the agents, it will be in our power to provide for the occasional demands of the army in their present cantonments; much less, to have in readiness the necessary apparatus, and supplies of different kinds, for putting the army in motion at the opening of the campaign. My apprehensions of a failure in these respects are so strong, and my anxiety for the consequences so great, that I feel it my duty once more to represent to your Excellency our circumstances and prospects. From such a view of our situation, you may be led not to expect more from us than we are able to perform, and may have time to take your measures consequent upon such information.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (January 1780)

Money , People , Hope , Feeling

“The artists and donors and priests forgot nothing which, in their judgment could set off the authority, elegance and refinement of the Queen of Heaven; even the young ladies-in-waiting are there, figured by the twelve Virtues and the fourteen Beatitudes; and indeed, though men are plenty and some of them are handsome, women give the tone, the charm, and mostly the intelligence. The court of Mary is feminine, and its charms are Grace and Love; perhaps even more grace than love, in a social sense, if you look at Beauty and Friendship among Beatitudes.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)

Love , Women , Men , Friendship

“As in other European countries there were anti-semitic tendencies in pre-Hitler Austria too. Formerly political forces, together with the official authorities, had been sufficiently strong to prevent any excesses and nip any outburst in the bud apart from some verbal invective. Karl Renner says: … Throughout the Christian Social period in power no harm came to a single Jew in Vienna; in fact the Jewish element made far greater progress in the press, literature, theatre and business worlds than in the previous so-called liberal period... It must not be forgotten, however, that Vienna was the entry point for Jews from the East who did not assimilate easily.”

Kurt Schuschnigg (1897–1977) Chancellor of Austria

Source: The Brutal Takeover: The Austrian ex-Chancellor’s account of the Anschluss of Austria by Hitler, 1971, p. 62

World , Literature , Business , Strong

“The Government's policies of controlling local authority spending, cutting National Health spending and promoting private medicine and care for the elderly are a return to the workhouse. The only difference is that it is a capitalist workhouse rather than a discreet workhouse stuck away in the hills outside the town…Care for the elderly is an important issue. It cannot be left to volunteers, charities or to people going out with collecting boxes to see that old people are looked after properly. The issue is central to our demands for a caring society. That means an end to the cuts and an end to the policy of attacking those authorities that try to care for the elderly. Instead, there should be support for and recognition of those demands. Elderly people deserve a little more than pats on the head from Conservative Members. They deserve more than the platitudinous nonsense talked about handing the meals on wheels service over to the WRVS or any other volunteer who cares to run it. Instead, there should be a recognition that those who have worked all their lives to create and provide the wealth that the rest of us enjoy deserve some dignity in retirement. They do not deserve poverty, or to be ignored in their retirement, having to live worrying whether to put on the gas fire, or boil the kettle for a cup of tea, or whether they can afford a television licence or a trip out. They should not have to wonder whether the home help who has looked after them so long will be able to continue. The issue is crucial. The motion says clearly that care for the elderly comes before the promotion of policies that merely increase the wealth of those who are already the wealthiest in our society.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1984/feb/22/care-of-the-elderly in the House of Commons (22 February 1984).
1980s

People , Health , Home , Support

“In the early stages of modern European history the absolute monarch was freed from the limitations based on medieval natural law. No longer subject to the control of any contract, he was able to raise himself from being a mere protector of order (Defensor Pads) to being its creator (Creator Pacis), and thereby he emerged as the first 'free' individual in the modern period. What happened at the beginning of modern Japanese history (that is, in the Meiji Restoration) was very different indeed. The amalgamation of spiritual authority with political power was regarded not as any new departure in the concept of sovereignty, but simply as a return to 'the ancient days of the Jimmu Foundation.”

Masao Maruyama (scholar)

Though the Emperor was regarded as the embodiment of ultimate value, he was infinitely removed from the possibility of creating values out of nothing.
Thought and Behaviour in Modern Japanese Politics (1963), Ch. 1 : Theory and Psychology of Ultra-Nationalism

Law , History , Departure , Nature

“"Whoever denies authority and fights against it is an anarchist," said Sebastien Faure. The definition is tempting in its simplicity, but simplicity is the first thing to guard against in writing a history of anarchism. Few doctrines or movements have been so confusedly understood in the public mind, and few have presented in their own variety of approach and action so much excuse for confusion.”

George Woodcock (1912–1995) Canadian writer of political biography and history, an anarchist thinker, an essayist and literary critic

Prologue http://www.ditext.com/woodcock/1.html
Anarchism : A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements (1962)

History , Fight