#authority

The ultimate court of appeal is observation and experiment... not authority. ↗

— Thomas Huxley

#authority #court #experiment #observation #ultimate

The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin. ↗

— Thomas Huxley

#acknowledge #authority #blind #blind faith #duties

Punishment may make us obey the orders we are given, but at best it will only teach an obedience to authority, not a self-control which enhances our self-respect. ↗

— Bruno Bettelheim

#best #enhances #given #make #may

The plane had lost power in all three engines, dropped from thirty-four thousand feet to twelve thousand feet. Something like four miles. When the steep glide began, people rose, fell, collided, swam in their seats. Then the serious screaming and moaning began. Almost immediately a voice from the flight deck was heard on the intercom: "We're falling out of the sky! We're going down! We're a silver gleaming death machine!" This outburst struck the passengers as an all but total breakdown of authority, competence and command presence and it brought on a round of fresh and desperate wailing. ↗

— Don DeLillo

#authority #death #death

Ninety percent of the students take the 'preferred lender.' Why? Because that's the nature of the relationship. You trust the school. The school is in a position of authority. ↗

— Andrew Cuomo

#because #lender #nature #ninety #percent

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

— Benjamin Tucker

#authority #contradiction #exercise #over #same

The decisions of law courts should never be printed: in the long run, they form a counter authority to the law. ↗

— Denis Diderot

#counter #courts #decisions #form #law

I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it. ↗

— Albert Einstein

#behind #believe #concern #consider #ethics

The tensions between authority and the people need to be heard, especially when they are suffering and they can't eat. ↗

— Ralph Fiennes

#between #eat #especially #heard #need

The function of literature, through all its mutations, has been to make us aware of the particularity of selves, and the high authority of the self in its quarrel with its society and its culture. Literature is in that sense subversive. ↗

— Lionel Trilling

#aware #been #culture #function #high