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Authority Quotes

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Authority Quotes

“A religious creed differs from a scientific theory in claiming to embody eternal and absolutely certain truth, whereas science is always tentative, expecting that modification in its present theories will sooner or later be found necessary, and aware that its method is one which is logically incapable of arriving at a complete and final demonstration.”

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Author:Bertrand Russell
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“The authority of science promotes and encourages the activity of observing, comparing, measuring and ordering the physical characteristics of human bodies. Cartesian epistemology and classical ideals produced forms of rationality, scientificity and objectivity that, though efficacious in the quest for truth and knowledge, prohibited the intelligibility and legitimacy of black equality. In fact, to "think" such an idea was to be deemed irrational, barbaric or mad.”

ThinkingHumansIdeasFactsBodyFormBlackActivityAuthorityIdealsMadCompareCharacteristicsQuestsIrrationalRationalityHuman BodyObservingObjectivityMeasuringLegitimacyEpistemologyBarbaricTruth And Knowledge
Author:Cornel West
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“The constitutionality and propriety of the Federal Government assuming to enter into a novel and vast field of legislation, namely, that of providing for the care and support of all those ... who by any form of calamity become fit objects of public philanthropy. ... I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for making the Federal Government the great almoner of public charity throughout the United States. To do so would, in my judgment, be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive of the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded.”

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Author:Franklin Pierce
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“There are those, of course, who deny that they need any form of authority. They are the popular atheists and agnostics. Such men say that they must be shown by 'reason' whatever they are to accept as true. But the great thinkers among non-Christian men have taken no such position. They know that they cannot cover the whole area of reality with their knowledge.”

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Author:Cornelius Van Til
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“Transcendentalism is, we might say, an early form of anarchism. The Transcendentalists also did not call themselves anarchists, but there are anarchist ideas in their thinking and in their literature. They were all suspicious of authority. We might say that the Transcendentalism played a role in creating an atmosphere of skepticism towards authority, towards government.”

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Author:Howard Zinn
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“The method of authority will always govern the mass of mankind; and those who wield the various forms of organized force in the state will never be convinced that dangerous reasoning ought not to be suppressed in some way.”

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Book:The Essential Peirce, Volume 1: Selected Philosophical Writings? (1867–1893)
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“The adolescent frequently supposes that she is breaking out of the confines of her mundane, schoolgirl existence simply in order to break rules and defy authority. . . . She rids herself of the "oughts" and "musts" that convert every minor infraction into a sin of omission or commission. It certainly does not occur to her or to her family that by questioning the moral standards she erected as a child she is taking the first steps in her journey toward a firmer, more reasonable, less harsh, more ethical form of conscience.”

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Author:Louise J. Kaplan
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“The possible truths, hazily perceived in the world of abstraction, like those inferred from observation and experiment in the world of matter, are forced upon the profane multitudes, too busy to think for themselves, under the form of Divine revelation and scientific authority. But the same question stands open from the days of Socrates and Pilate down to our own age of wholesale negation: is there such a thing as absolute truth in the hands of any one party or man?”

ThinkingMenWorldMatterHandsAgeSpiritualFormPartyDivineAuthorityAbsolutesBusyExperimentsObservationRevelationsMultitudesAbstractionToo BusyAbsolute TruthProfaneNegationWholesaleDivine Revelation
Author:H. P. Blavatsky
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“The question before the human race is, Whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether Priests and Kings shall rule it by fictitious Miracles? Or, in other words, whether authority is originally in the People? Or whether it has descended for 1800 Years in a succession of Popes and Bishops, or brought down from Heaven by the Holy Ghost in the form of a Dove, in a Phial of holy Oil?”

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Book:The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams
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“The history of mankind is a history of the subjugation and exploitation of a great majority of people by an elite few by what has been appropriately termed the 'ruling class'. The ruling class has many manifestations. It can take the form of a religious orthodoxy, a monarchy, a dictatorship of the proletariat, outright fascism, or, in the case of the United States, corporate statism. In each instance the ruling class relies on academics, scholars and 'experts' to legitimize and provide moral authority for its hegemony over the masses.”

PeopleHas BeensStatesFormReligionReligiousUnitedMoralClassCasesUnited StatesMankindAuthorityMassMajorityInstanceCorporateManifestationExpertsRelyFascismElitesScholarDictatorshipExploitationRulingMonarchyOrthodoxyProletariatHegemonySubjugationMoral Authority
Author:Ed Crane
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“People in general know not what wickedness there is in this pretended word of God. Brought up in habits of superstition, they take it for granted that the Bible is true, and that it is good; they permit themselves not to doubt of it, and they carry the ideas they form of the benevolence of the Almighty to the book which they have been taught to believe was written by his authority. Good heavens! It is quite another thing; it is a book of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy.”

PeopleKnowsBelieveHas BeensBookIdeasFormLyingHeavenDoubtWrittenTaughtHabitAuthorityGrantedPermitWord Of GodSuperstitionsAlmightyWickednessBenevolenceBlasphemy
Book:Citizen Paine: Thomas Paine's Thoughts on Man, Government, Society, and Religion
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“There is something very consistent about governance in the Arab world. Among the Arab countries today in which there is a modicum of internal stability, each is controlled by an Arafat-type figure - an anti-democratic strongman who is able to crush all challenges to his authority. Likewise, among those Arab countries that aren't ruled by a despot, the political dynamic is also consistent: In Lebanon, Iraq, and now Gaza, sectarian violence is the dominant form of political expression.”

WorldCountryTodayAbleFormPoliticalChallengesViolenceFiguresExpressionTypeAuthorityDemocraticIraqCrushConsistentInternalsControlledStabilityDominantGovernanceGazaLebanonDespotsArab WorldArafat
Author:Michael Totten
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“The Chinese central government will slowly and steadily lose authority while regional armies [gain power]. The Western powers are going to take sides to protect their investments - they have put billions of dollars into Shanghai. Their fear is that [these investments] are going to be expropriated by a warlord from the interior who will sweep down on Shanghai. They will try to form alliances with warlords to protect their concessions, and there will be a huge flow of weapons into China.”

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Author:George Friedman
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“This is the nature of war, whose stake is at once the game and the authority and the justification. Seen so, war is the truest form of divination. It is the testing of one's will and the will of another within that larger will which because it binds them is therefore forced to select. War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence.War is god.”

WarLastsFormGamesExistenceAuthorityUltimateUnityStakesJustificationTestingSelectTruest
Book:Blood Meridian: Picador Classic
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“If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us. In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.”

IfsThinkingWorldShouldHumansMayChildrenCountryReasonHandsFormScienceSpiritCertainCommunityOpinionDarknessVirtueRightsTeachingHumilityCitizensAuthorityOur ChildrenMethodBillsPositive AtheismEducatedDemonSkepticismBeing HumanDecencyUnwillingBill Of RightsScientific MethodCommunity Spirit
Author:Carl Sagan
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“The most absurd apology for authority and law is that they serve to diminish crime. Aside from the fact that the State is itself the greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law, stealing in the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and capital punishment, it has come to an absolute standstill in coping with crime. It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the horrible scourge of its own creation.”

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Book:Anarchism: Top Crime Collections
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“As we are concerned with what others think of us, so we are anxious to know all about them; and from this arise the crude and subtle forms of snobbishness and the worship of authority. Thus we become more and more externalized and inwardly empty. The more externalized we are, the more sensations and distractions there must be, and this gives rise to a mind that is never quiet, that is not capable of deep search and discovery.”

ThinkingKnowsGivingMindFormQuietAuthorityWorshipCapableDiscoveryConcernedEmptyAriseSubtleGossipSensationsDistractionAnxiousCrudeDeep SeaSnobbishness
Book:Commentaries on Living 2
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