Political Authority Quotes

Power without authority is tyranny.

Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness….government in its best state is a necessary evil; in its worse state an intolerable one.

Any elite which is not prepared to join in battle to defend its position is in full decadence, and all that is left to it is to give way to another elite having the virile qualities it lacks.

What the city [Constantinople] contains is its own; beyond the walls it has no dominion—owns nothing. If I want to build a castle at the Sacred Mouth, it can’t forbid me. Tell your emperor this: The sultan who now rules is not like his predecessors. What they couldn’t achieve, he can do easily and at once. The things they did not wish to do, he certainly does. The next man who comes here on a mission like this will be flayed alive.

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.

To make a State appear necessary, any would-be State must first destroy the natural order and create a Hobbesian "anarchy" characterized by looting and vandalizing.

Power is poison. Its effects on Presidents had always been tragic; chiefly as an almost insane excitement at first, and a worse reaction afterwards; but also because no mind is so well balanced as to bar the strain of seizing unlimited force without habit or knowledge of it; and finding it disputed with him by hungry packs of wolves and hounds whose lives depend on snatching the carrion.

Harry Truman's decision to fire Douglas MacArthur at the height of the Korean War in April 1951 shocked the American political system and astonished the world. Much of the world didn't realize the president had the power to fire a five-star general; much of America didn't realize Truman had the nerve.

All the power of the government will be directed towards the Rockefeller Trust.

Democracy is a kingless regime infested by many kings who are sometimes more exclusive, tyrannical and destructive than one, even if he be a tyrant.

The Church not only prescribes for her children to obey state power regardless of the convictions and faith of its bearers, but also prays for it.

If the people be governors, who shall be governed?

Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms.

A government is a compulsory territorial monopolist of ultimate decision-making (jurisdiction) and, implied in this, a compulsory territorial monopolist of taxation. That is, a government is the ultimate arbiter, for the inhabitants of a given territory, regarding what is just and what is not, and it can determine unilaterally, i.e., without requiring the consent of those seeking justice or arbitration, the price that justice-seekers must pay to the government for providing this service.

Where there is no common power, there is no law

To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.

There are many, many people who can recommend and advise, and a few of them consent, but there is only one who has been chosen by the American people to decide.

As to mere power I have been for years in the daily exercise of more personal authority than any President habitually enjoys.

Of all the numerous forms that governments have taken over the centuries, of all the concepts and institutions that have been tried, none has succeeded in keeping the State in check. The problem of the State is evidently as far from solution as ever.

Freedom of the news media must be subordinated to the overriding needs of Singapore, and to the primacy of purpose of an elected government.

To want to become the President is, I think, such a bizarre ambition that it is automatically deranging.

I am an international leader, the dean of the Arab rulers, the king of kings of Africa and the imam of Muslims, and my international status does not allow me to descend to a lower level.

If those in charge of our society – politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television – can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.

The most important detail separating the West from the East is the existence of administrators who are able to give up power. Former presidents, prime ministers and deputies must be reconciled to leaving power.

Because politics rests on an irreducible measure of coercion, it can never become a perfect realm of perfect love and justice.