Norman R. Augustine Quotes

A deck of cards is built like the purest of hierarchies, with every card a master to those below it, a lackey to those above it.

Authority doesn't work without prestige, or prestige without distance.

Like most animals, we're wired to associate height with power.

Power says if you are a committee chairman, your idea is good only because you have got power.

I only want to debate people who are more powerful than I am.

Authority is not a quality one person 'has', in the sense that he has property or physical qualities. Authority refers to an interpersonal relation in which one person looks upon another as somebody superior to him.

Often times, the more power and prestige a person achieves, the more arrogant a person can become.

You'll never see the president carry his own luggage, and why? Because even though we know he has luggage, it would reduce his stature if he was too much like us. We need to think of our leaders as being above us, even though they must still relate to us.

A position of eminence makes a great person greater and a small person less.

One often has need of one, inferior to himself.

People desire power. I don't know why they want it so. It seems to me it implies a hugely superior intellect which separates them from most of the populace.

The man who occupies the first place seldom plays the principal part.

I don't believe in honors - it bothers me. Honors bother: honors is epaulettes; honors is uniforms. My papa brought me up this way.

When you meet powerful men or just read about them in the newspapers, you see that they don't have a sense of boundaries.

Official dignity tends to increase in inverse ratio to the importance of the country in which the office is held.

Your part can be the king, but unless people are treating you like royalty, you ain't no king, man.

I would rather be the tail of a lion than the head of a mouse.

Elites quite naturally define as the most important and admired qualities for a citizen those on which they themselves have concentrated.

In Gravity clad, He has nought in his Head, But Visions of Nobles & Kings With Commons below, Who respectfully bow, And worship the dignified Things

Kings need the company of the intelligent far more than the intelligent need the company of kings.

Order is Heaven's first law, and this confessed, Some are, and must be greater than the rest -

How many, even of the better sort, would choose to be slaves to those above them, provided they might exercise an arbitrary and tyrannical rule over all below them?

I think there's always going to be some kind of bigotry or some kind of racism. There has to be, because people can't feel that they have any hero qualities unless there's someone beneath them.

This idea of walls, segregation, labels, and 'You against us' and 'We are superior and you are inferior.' Which people are legitimate? Which relationships are legitimate or not? Who declares that under which authority? These are things that are hugely important.

The sole purpose of a crown is to make anyone not wearing one feel like an insignificant pauper. They're obscene to the point of satire.