#authority

The Kantian imperative to have the courage to think for oneself has involved a contemptuous disregard for the resources of tradition and an infantile view of authority as inherently oppressive. ↗

— Terry Eagleton

#individualism #rationalism #tradition #courage

I'm a lion in a strange land. ↗

— Criss Jami

#awkwardness #beast #courage #different #earth

The idea that each of us can be directly spiritual is radical. Most religions are based not on teaching adherents to be directly spiritual, but in persuading them to trust in the intercession of ministers or priests. The problem with this approach is that we cannot gain access to spirituality except through the medium of a fallible human being. If we want to see Tao, we need only open our eyes and trust what we see. ↗

— Ming-Dao Deng

#experience #spiritual #experience

I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. ↗

— James Madison

#constitution #freedom-of-speech #freedom-of-thought #politics #freedom

Our natural rights come from an authority beyond the petty rule of man. ↗

— Bryant McGill

#freedom #right #freedom

But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes. ↗

— William H. Seward

#constitution #devotes #domain #higher #law

Men are excessively ruthless and cruel not as a rule out of malice but from outraged righteousness. How much more is this true of legally constituted states, invested with all this seeming moral authority of parliaments and congresses and courts of justice! The destructive capacity of an individual, however vicious, is small; of the state, however well-intentioned, almost limitless. Expand the state and the destructive capacity necessarily expands too. Collective righteousness is far more ungovernable than any individual pursuit of revenge. That was a point well understood by Woodrow Wilson, who warned: 'Once lead this people into war and they'll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance. ↗

— Paul Johnson

#indignation #men

I shall drink to the Pope, if you please, still, to conscience first, and to the Pope afterwards. ↗

— John Henry Newman

#conscience #religion #religion

I am a liberated woman. And I do believe if a woman does equal work she should be paid equal money. But personally I am feminine and I do like male authority to lean on. ↗

— Julie Andrews

#authority #believe #does #equal #equal work

The fate of every democracy, of every government based on the sovereignty of the people, depends on the choices it makes between these opposite principles, absolute power on the one hand, and on the other the restraints of legality and the authority of tradition. ↗

— John Acton

#absolute power #authority #based #between #choices