Quotes about Authority

He who eats my bread does my will.

Two kinds of readiness are constantly needed: (i) to do only what the logos of authority and law directs, with the good of human beings in mind; (ii) to reconsider your position, when someone can set you straight or convert you to his. But your conversion should always rest on a conviction that it's right, or benefits others—nothing else. Not because it's more appealing or more popular.

We are bound by the law, so that we may be free.

In communities and individuals alike, excessive freedom topples over into excessive slavery. Extreme freedom produces a tyrant, along with the extremely harsh and evil slavery that goes with him.

When power is scarce, a little of it is tempting.

There is indeed something delightful about being able to combine obedience and disobedience in the same act.

The Aunts had their methods, and their informants: no walls were solid for them, no doors locked.

He has something we don't have, he has the word.

You can't lead if no one will follow.

Any forced change of leadership is always followed by a move to crush the opposition. The opposition is led by the educated, so the educated are the first to be eliminated.

While I read, the Commander sits and watches me doing it, without speaking but also without taking his eyes off me. This watching is a curiously sexual act, and I feel undressed while he does it.

A rebuke, a palpable rebuke! How dare she? He was already middle-aged when she was born! He could have been her father! He could have been her child molester!