Quotes about Authority

The spirit of dialectical fearlessness is not so easily acquired; and the sense of isolation which remains despite the conviction of right, the sadness of the parting from admired and trustworthy [or trusted?] authorities, is the line of demarcation which marks the threshold of its acquirement.

If men will not be governed by the Ten Commandments, they shall be governed by the ten thousand commandments.

Religion is never the problem; it's the people who use it to gain power.

Religion is the most fragile of all freedoms. And that's because it is the most threatening to those in power.

The Government of the United States possesses no power whatever over the question of religion.

When religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.

It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage...Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe.

There has never been a philosophy, a theory or a doctrine, that attacked (or 'limited') reason, which did not preach submission to the power of some authority.

It is not about doing what we feel like. It is about doing what God says.

Pedantry in learning is like hypocrisy inn religion--a form of knowledge without the power of it.

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

[O]ur rules can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God.