#authority

I want my name to mean me. ↗

— Mark Haddon

#authority

Imperfections are not inadequacies; they are reminders that we're all in this together." Brene Brown ↗

— Brené Brown

#authority

I do not read a book; I hold a conversation with the author. ↗

— Elbert Hubbard

#authority

I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works. ↗

— Samuel Johnson

#literary-criticism #obscurity #writing #authority

Authority, when first detecting chaos at its heels, will entertain the vilest schemes to save its orderly facade. ↗

— Alan Moore

#authority #authority

I am often described to my irritation as a 'contrarian' and even had the title inflicted on me by the publisher of one of my early books. (At least on that occasion I lived up to the title by ridiculing the word in my introduction to the book's first chapter.) It is actually a pity that our culture doesn't have a good vernacular word for an oppositionist or even for someone who tries to do his own thinking: the word 'dissident' can't be self-conferred because it is really a title of honor that has to be won or earned, while terms like 'gadfly' or 'maverick' are somehow trivial and condescending as well as over-full of self-regard. And I've lost count of the number of memoirs by old comrades or ex-comrades that have titles like 'Against the Stream,' 'Against the Current,' 'Minority of One,' 'Breaking Ranks' and so forth—all of them lending point to Harold Rosenberg's withering remark about 'the herd of independent minds.' Even when I was quite young I disliked being called a 'rebel': it seemed to make the patronizing suggestion that 'questioning authority' was part of a 'phase' through which I would naturally go. On the contrary, I was a relatively well-behaved and well-mannered boy, and chose my battles with some deliberation rather than just thinking with my hormones. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#contrarianism #dissent #dissidents #free-thought #harold-rosenberg

Where the people possess no authority, their rights obtain no respect. ↗

— George Bancroft

#no respect #obtain #people #possess #respect

The National Intelligence Director needs the authority to do the job we are asking him to do. That means power over the intelligence budget. And to be effective, to be allowed to do his or her job, they must have authority over the budget. ↗

— Leonard Boswell

#asking #authority #budget #director #effective

The exercise of authority over the same area by two States is a contradiction. ↗

— Benjamin Tucker

#authority #contradiction #exercise #over #same

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence. ↗

— Leonardo da Vinci

#much #nothing #silence #strengthens