Best authority & thinking Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“I have gone to Albany constantly in my capacity as budget director, because I don't think the way the transit authority works with the City of New York is very appropriate.”

Thinking Way Cities Gone New York Directors Authority Capacity Budgets Appropriate Albany

Author:Joe Lhota

“I think you need brains to do any Shakespeare with any authority. I could do Shakespeare, but not with any authority.”

Thinking Needs Brain Authority

Author:Sam Neill

“Blind obedience is a sure sign of trouble. The likelihood of religion becoming evil is greatly diminished when there is freedom for individual thinking and when honest inquiry is encouraged.”

Thinking Evil Individual Trouble Honest Becoming Authority Blind Obedience Inquiry Likelihood Blind Obedience

Author:Charles Kimball

“I sometimes think we ought to bring a bill before Congress changing our national symbol from the eagle to the buffalo, because we are more like the buffalo than the eagle. The eagle is a powerful bird. It flies alone. It rises up into the sky with authority. It is master of all it surveys. The eagle is an individualist and was selected from among the rest of the birds to be our symbol. But the buffalo was never alone. It always ran in a herd with other buffaloes. And, friends, I call your attention that the buffaloes are gone from the open range, but the eagles are still soaring.”

Thinking Stills Sometimes America Powerful Attention Gone Sky Masters Ought Authority Bird Bills Congress Symbols Range Ran Soar Eagles Herds Surveys Selected Buffalo

Author:Norman Vincent Peale

“I think most Americans have an innate respect for the police and for their authority.”

Thinking Authority Police Innate

Author:Kimberly Guilfoyle

“Do what is right, and the reward will be immediate and multitudinous. Think what is right, and your authority will grow.”

Thinking Grows Authority Rewards

Author:John Kremer

“As the base rhetorician uses language to increase his own power, to produce converts to his own cause, and to create loyal followers of his own person - so the noble rhetorician uses language to wean men away from their inclination to depend on authority, to encourage them to think and speak clearly, and to teach them to be their own masters.”

Thinking Men Persons Use Speak Language Causes Teach Produce Masters Depends Authority Increase Noble Followers Loyal Inclination

Author:Thomas Szasz

“Insofar as I think about postmodernism at all, and it doesn't exactly keep me awake at nights, I think of it as something that happens to one, not a style one affects. We're postmoderns because we're not modernists. The modernist writersPound, Eliot, Joyce, Stevens, Yeats, Woolf, Williamsspoke with a kind of vatic authority: they were really the last of the Romantics, for whom authorship itself was like being a solitary prophet in the wasteland.”

Thinking Kind Happens Lasts Night Style Authority Awake Prophet Pounds Spokes Solitary Postmodernism Authorship Joyce Postmodern Eliot Wasteland Woolf Awake At Night Yeats

Author:Jonathan Raban

“The Anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order, and in the assertion that, without authority, there could not be worse violence than that of authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that Anarchy can be instituted by a revolution. "To establish Anarchy." "Anarchy will be instituted." But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not require protection from governmental power, and by there being more and more people who will be ashamed of applying this power.”

People Thinking Order Violence Conditions Revolution Authority Protection Ashamed Anarchy Mistaken Anarchist Assertion Negation Mental Power

Book:Social Evils and Their Remedy

Source: Social Evils and Their Remedy

“The modern world is reversing the old virtues of authority. They aimed deliberately to make men unworldly. They did not aim to found society on a full use of the earth's resources; they did not aim to use the whole nature of man; they did not intend him to think out the full expression of his desires. Democracy is a turning point upon those ideals in a pursuit, at first unconsciously, of the richest life that men can devise for themselves.”

Thinking Men World Firsts Whole Use Earth Desire Found Virtue Democracy Modern Expression Authority Resources Ideals Aim Pursuit Modern World Turning Points Nature Of Man

Author:Walter Lippmann

“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.”

“As soon as we get comfortable in one role, we have to take on another! Why? ... Because he wants to keep us off balance! That's why! Because he doesn't want us to THINK! He doesn't want us to QUESTION HIS AUTHORITY! So he keeps us busy! Keeps us running in circles! Like mice! Rushing from one role to the next! Well, I'm on to his game! I see what he's doing! And I refuse to participate!”

Thinking Want Wells Running Next Games Roles Balance Authority Comfortable Busy Refuse Circles Mice Want U Rushing Running In Circles

Author:Walter Wykes

“Put the money into schools. Rational ones that train young minds to think, to demand that persons in authority show the evidence for the ideas they push. Do that, and we won't need to provide a world for the Sacred Brethren who, given the opportunity, would run everyone else off the planet.”

Thinking World Needs Mind Persons Ideas Shows Running School Young Opportunity Given Planets Demand Authority Evidence Sacred Train Rational Brethren Young Minds

Author:Jack McDevitt

“George Orwell was right. There's no greater genius as far as I'm concerned in terms of understanding human nature. I think that a lot of people just believe anything you tell them, and no matter what it is, they just go along with the program. They're perfectly happy to take their pill every day and do what they're told, and work and buy things, and work and buy things, and stay out of any complex emotional situations. And whatever the authorities tell them to do, they do, and whatever the authorities say is the truth, they believe is the truth.”

People Thinking Believe Humans Matter Understanding Term Situation Greater Human Nature Emotional Genius Authority Concerned Program No Matter What Complexes Pills Just Believe

Author:George Lucas

“It is wrong for a secular government to promote prayer. We think the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. What if the president declared a National Day of Cursing God because He failed us on September 11? Americans would say, "You've overstepped your authority." That's how we feel when he promotes prayer.”

Ifs Thinking Feels Government President Prayer Atheism Authority Positive Atheism What If Secular September September 11 Cursing Unconstitutional National Day Of Prayer

Author:Dan Barker

“Liberalism is that principle of political rights, according to which the public authority, in spite of being all-powerful, limits itself and attempts, even at ist own expense, to leave room in the state over which it rules for those to live who neither think nor feel as it does, that is to say as do the stronger, the majority.”

Thinking Feels Doe States Political Rooms Powerful Principles Rights Limits Authority Stronger Majority Liberalism Spite Expenses Political Rights

Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset

“power is not a thing to be owned. But if you believe that it is such a thing, losing it becomes a possibility to fear. That fear, I think, is one reason for the dark projections of a catastrophic future that are so widespread, in our dual society. The present powerful, being committed to polarization, expect that any new deal will overturn the one that set them in authority; that the last shall be first and the first last, role reversal everywhere, men as slaves, women as masters, in a revolution of contradiction.”

“Let me ask, who died and made him king? Who gave him the authority to endanger 300 million Americans? That's not the way it works, and if he thinks he can get away with that, he's got another think coming.”

Ifs Thinking Way Made Asks Millions Kings Authority Let Me Died Get Away Nsa

Author:John Bolton

“I am often tempted to think of success in terms that are defined by others: records sold, popularity gained, album reviews, etc. These are impossible demands, however, and they can never be satisfied. Letting finite others define our worth is a horrible way to live. Only the Infinite Other [God] has the authority to do this.”

Thinking Way Term Records Impossible Demand Authority Infinite Albums Satisfied Horrible Defined Etc Reviews Popularity Finite Tempted Way To Live

Author:Jon Foreman

“I would like to see ... an entirely different procedure which is that we vote on the budget and decide how much we are going to spend, first, the way any family does, and then fit our priorities into what we think we have to spend. Instead, what we do, is to do it incrementally, starting at the bottom, adding and adding and adding. ... Until we get the support of all the authorities in this House to decide, first, what we think this country can afford and then decide where the amount is going to be allocated, we will never have common sense in this House.”

Thinking Way Firsts Doe Different Country House Common Support Amount Fit Authority Vote Bottom Starting Priorities Common Sense Budgets Procedures

Author:Millicent Fenwick

“The opposite of thinking clearly is being muddled. To be conscious of being muddled is a horrible experience. To avoid it we may even be tempted to shut our minds and swallow a belief, ready-made, from some expert authority.”

Thinking Mind May Made Belief Ready Authority Conscious Opposites Horrible Experts Tempted Horrible Experience Thinking Clearly

Author:Susan Stebbing

“Nobody should ever mistake and think that our country [USA] is weakened, or that authority is diffuse and unspecified, and that we are vulnerable.”

Thinking Should Country Mistake Authority Our Country Vulnerable Usa

Author:Michael Bloomberg

“I think a way to behave is to think not in terms of representative government, not in terms of voting, not in terms of electoral politics, but thinking in terms of organizing social movements, organizing in the work place, organizing in the neighborhood, organizing collectives that can become strong enough to eventually take over - first to become strong enough to resist what has been done to them by authority, and second, later, to become strong enough to actually take over the institutions.”

“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.”

Thinking Ideas Government Might Form Literature Roles Authority Creating Atmosphere Skepticism Suspicious Anarchism Anarchist Transcendentalism

Author:Howard Zinn

“We often imagine that the court serves as a sort of neutral umpire controlling the warring political branches. But this is mostly myth. The justices of the Supreme Court are themselves actors in the struggle for power, and when they intervene, they think carefully about how their decisions will affect the courts own legitimacy and authority.”

Thinking Political Actors Justice Decision Struggle Imagine Authority Court Myth Supreme Branches Imagine That Supreme Court Umpires Legitimacy

Author:Noah Feldman

“I think that Canadians have an incredible reverence for authority and regard for authority, and I think one of the healthy ways that it's challenged is through questioning it, through the polite hostility of comedy.”

Thinking Way Comedy Healthy Authority Regard Incredibles Reverence Questioning Polite Hostility

Author:Lorne Michaels

“I think thats the most important job of a novelist - to bring authority to their writing.”

Thinking Writing Important Jobs Authority Novelists Important Jobs

Author:Maria Semple

“The world needs women who stop asking for permission from the principal. Permission to live their lives as they deeply know they often should. I think we still look to authority figures for validation, recognition, permission.”

Thinking Knows World Needs Should Looks Stills Figures Authority Asking Recognition Principal Permission Should I Validation Authority Figures

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“We think that we live in a heterosexual society because most men are fixated on women as sexual objects; but, in fact, we live ina homosexual society because all credible transactions of power, authority, and authenticity take place among men; all transactions based on equity and individuality take place among men. Men are real; therefore, all real relationship is between men; all real communication is between men; all real reciprocity is between men; all real mutuality is between men.”

Thinking Men Real Facts Objects Communication Authority Individuality Authenticity Homosexuality Homosexual Equity Transactions Reciprocity Credible Real Relationship

Author:Andrea Dworkin

“For if I should not believe all that is written by Historians, of the glorious acts of Alexander, or Caesar; I do not think the Ghost of Alexander, or Caesar, had any just cause to be offended; or any body else, but the Historian. If Livy say the Gods made once a Cow speak, and we believe it not; we distrust not God therein, but Livy. So that it is evident, that whatsoever we believe, upon no other reason, then what is drawn from authority of men only, and their writings; whether they be sent from God or not, is Faith in men only.”

Source: Hobbes: Leviathan: Revised student edition

“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?”

“I must follow my Lord. No matter what. I must renew my allegiance every morning. It is His voice I must listen to, not the voices of those around me, however strident, however persuasive. It is His Word that must govern my life, not the words of others. God Himself has written a Book (think of it!) that must be the authority in my life.”

Thinking Book Matter Voice Lord Morning Written Authority No Matter What Every Morning Allegiance Persuasive

Author:Stu Weber

“To form a judgment intuitively is the privilege of few; authority and example lead the rest of the world. They see with the eyes of others, they hear with the ears of others. Therefore it is very easy to think as all the world now think; but to think as all the world will think thirty years hence is not in the power of every one.”

Thinking World Years Eye Form Easy Example Authority Judgment Ears Privilege Thirty Thirty Years

Author:Arthur Schopenhauer

“I think of myself as unconventional. I maybe always had a problem with authority, like a stubbornness about what's expected - despite wanting to get some recognition through performing - but also not always wanting to do the expected thing.”

Thinking Problem Authority Expected Despite Recognition Performing Stubbornness Unconventional

Author:Kim Gordon

“I remember selling my first short story and thinking, Oh my god, I sold something for fifty dollars! That gives me the authority to say I'm a writer and to actually write more things! It legitimized the activity.”

Thinking Giving Writing Firsts Stories Remember Activity Authority Give Me Dollars Selling Fifty Short Story

Author:Chuck Palahniuk

“I've been so mistreated by male authority in my life that I had a terrible time in my marriage trying to be a submissive wife. I wanted to rule the roost in everything. And it wasn't even really that I was rebellious; I was afraid of being hurt. And I think that a lot of people that choose these alternative lifestyles, I think it's because they've been hurt somewhere along the line very badly.”

People Thinking Trying Wanted Hurt Lines Wife Terrible Authority Males Lifestyle Alternatives Rebellious Submissive Being Hurt Been Hurt Mistreated Terrible Times Roost Afraid Of Being Hurt

Author:Joyce Meyer

“I think we fought Vietnam for the benefits of civilization, and certainly we fought it to oppose authority. To show our authority, to show we weren't weak. Isn't that what Nixon kept saying? "We have to show the world that we're not weak." So of course what we ended up showing the world was that we were, yep, weak. 'Cause we couldn't beat these kids in black pajamas.”

Thinking World Shows Kids Courses Causes Black Civilization Authority Benefits Beats Weak Vietnam Pajamas

Author:Stephen King

“Baby boomers helped me a great deal in my career. They launched me. They were there for me to sing my song to. And I'm not saying I'm better than anyone, but I think they turned that anti-authority baby boom mentality into their own enemy. Now I identify very closely with their children.”

Thinking Children Song Deals Enemy Careers Baby Authority Mentality Boomers Baby Boomer Baby Boom

Author:George Carlin

“It's a better tradition for people who think for themselves and who don't pray in aid of any supernatural authority. That's what you should be spending your life is in spreading and deepening that tradition.”

People Thinking Should Life Is Praying Authority Tradition Spending Aids

Author:Christopher Hitchens

“I think it's important to make art that is not that easily absorbable, that is a challenge to the authorities.”

Thinking Art Important Challenges Authority

Author:Lisa Yuskavage

“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.”

Thinking Two Helping Used Language Focus Authority Approach Tradition Relation Islam Helpful Temporality

Author:Talal Asad

“Authority pisses me off. I think everyone should be able to drink and get loud whenever they want.”

Thinking Want Should Able Drink Authority Loud Metallica

Author:James Hetfield

“I was always matching wits with authority. Pondering over my past and present hassles, I began to wonder why my life had taken the direction it had. What cosmic forces had led me to this precise moment that saw me, once again, dancing on the rim of the volcano? The answers started to come to me as my life flashed before my eyes. I think it all started when I was arrested as a pyromaniac.”

Thinking Life Moments Eye Past Force Answers Wonder Taken Saws Authority Dancing Wit Cosmic Precise Arrested Pondering My Past Past And Present Volcanoes Matching Rims Hassle

Book:The Wrong Stuff

Source: The Wrong Stuff

“No peace and security among mankind-let alone common friendship-can ever exist as long as people think that governments get their authority from God and that religion is to be propagated by force of arms.”

People Thinking Long Government Force Common Mankind Security Arms Authority Peace And Security

Author:John Locke

“When I had gone through the whole, and saw what a plain, simple, reasonable thing Christianity was, suited to all conditions and capacities; and in the morality of it now, with divine authority, established into a legible law, so far surpassing all that philosophy and human reason had attained to, or could possibly make effectual to all degrees of man kind; I was flattered to think it might be of some use in the world.”

Source: The Works of John Locke: In Nine Volumes

“Most of us aren't crazy psychotics, but most of us are a whole bunch of different people. I think when you are in a position of authority, that doesn't remove that from you.”

People Thinking Different Whole Crazy Position Authority Bunch Remove Different Peoples

Author:David Hyde Pierce

“'Rights' are granted; 'duties' are enforced. To speak of rights and duties is to think in terms of authority.”

Thinking Speak Term Rights Duty Authority Granted Rights And Duties

Author:Laurance Labadie

“I have a great respect for the flag, (but) if the government passed a law saying that I had to pledge allegiance to the flag, I don't think I would do it. I've always felt that I lived in a country...where if I wanted to worship God as a Baptist, I could do so. If I were an atheist, I could be one. If I wanted to be a Catholic but was born a Jew, there's no condemnation...from a government authority.”

Ifs Thinking Country Government Wanted Law Felt Born Authority Worship Catholic Atheist Jew Flags Pledge Allegiance Baptists Condemnation Worship God Great Respect

Author:Jimmy Carter

“If one is okay with police having guns - whoever is designated as having authority - but panicked at the thought of their fellow man or themselves having guns, then that is someone who does not think like a free person. He places a magical aura around whoever is in charge and only thinks they can wield power. This will come up again in other areas, such as letting government make economic decisions but fearing individual people making those decisions themselves.”

People Ifs Thinking Men Persons Doe Government Individual Decision Economic Letting Go Authority Gun Areas Okay Police Fellows Come Up Fellow Man Auras

Author:Frank J. Fleming

“The majority of men... are not capable of thinking, but only of believing, and... are not accessible to reason, but only to authority.”

Thinking Men Believe Reason Authority Capable Majority

Author:Arthur Schopenhauer

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Authority Quotes