Authority Quotes – Insights on Power and Leadership

"Those who decide are not elected, and those who are elected have nothing to decide."

Horst Seehofer

"Whenever a king sees that his people are about to revolt against him, he starts a war with another country."

Napoleon Bonaparte

"The first way to know something is, of course, through personal experience. You know that your living room is painted green because you’ve been in your living room and saw that it was green. (I won’t worry here about things like how you know you aren’t dreaming or insane or such.) Similarly you know what a bird is, how gravity works (again, in an everyday sense), and how to get to the nearest shopping mall, all by direct experience.
The second way to know things is by authority. That is, you rely on some source of information, believing it to be reliable, when you have no experience of your own. So almost every person who has gone to school believes that the earth goes around the sun, even though very few people would be able to tell you how anybody could even detect that motion. You are relying on authority if, when asked if you know the way to San Jose, you answer yes and pull out a map. You might be able to personally test the map’s reliability by using it to navigate to San Jose, but until you do you are relying on authority. Many people believe democracy is superior to other forms of government even though they haven’t lived under any other type. They rely on the authority of textbooks and politicians, and perhaps on verbal or pictorial descriptions of what it’s like in other societies. Of course other societies do the same, and most of their defenders rely on authority."

Michael J. Behe

"“To suppress a rebellion, it is not necessary to act violently. Methods like Hitler's are outdated. It suffices to create such a strong collective conditioning that the very thought of rebellion no longer arises in people's minds.

The ideal would be to shape people from birth and restrict their innate biological abilities. Afterwards, one would continue with conditioning and strictly reduce education to the acquisition of professional skills. An uneducated person has a limited horizon, and the more their thinking is confined to mediocre aspirations, the less capable they are of rebelling.

We must ensure that access to science becomes increasingly difficult and elitist, that a divide forms between people and science, and that information for the general public contains no subversive content. Above all, no philosophy. Here too, we must use the power of persuasion, not open violence.

On television, large-scale entertainment programs are broadcast that appeal exclusively to feelings or instincts. The mind will be occupied with the useless and playful. They can distract their minds from thinking through constant chatter and music.

We will place sexuality at the very top of a person's interest list. There is no better social tranquilizer.

In general, we will do this so that the serious part of existence is eliminated, everything valuable is ridiculed, and frivolity is constantly supported, so that public euphoria becomes the measure of human happiness and a model of freedom.

In this way, conditioning leads to such integration that our only fear is being excluded from the system and thus losing access to the conditions necessary for happiness.

The mass person thus formed must be treated as what he is: like a cow, and one must care for him like a herd. Everything that leads to the apathy of his clear mind is a public good, and everything that could awaken this good must be mocked, suppressed, and fought.

Any doctrine questioning the system must be branded as subversive and terrorist. And those who support it will then be treated as terrorists.”"

Günther Anders

"Each person seeks mastery over a world of slaves."

James M. Buchanan

"Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet. Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."

Napoleon Bonaparte

"The New World Order will be created and ultimately put an end to all national sovereignty. But an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault."

Richard N. Gardner

"The people in the public relations industry aren’t there for the fun of it. They’re doing work. They’re trying to instill the right values. In fact, they have a conception of what democracy ought to be: It ought to be a system in which the specialized class is trained to work in the service of the masters, the people who own the society. The rest of the population ought to be deprived of any form of organization, because organization just causes trouble. They ought to be sitting alone in front of the TV and having drilled into their heads the message, which says, the only value in life is to have more commodities or live like that rich middle class family you’re watching and to have nice values like harmony and Americanism. That’s all there is in life. You may think in your own head that there’s got to be something more in life than this, but since you’re watching the tube alone you assume, I must be crazy …"

Noam Chomsky

"In a democracy, the opposition is not only tolerated as constitutional, but must be maintained because it is indispensable."

Walter Lippmann

"The real terror of totalitarianism is not that it commits atrocities, but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it claims to control both the past and the future."

George Orwell

"Puzzlement and doubt are, however, already crimes in the totalitarian state. The mind that is open for questions is open for dissent. In the totalitarian regime the doubting, inquisitive, and imaginative mind has to be suppressed. The totalitarian slave is only allowed to memorize, to salivate when the bell rings."

Joost A.M. Meerloo

"World events do not occur by accident. They are made to happen, whether it is to do with national issues or commerce; and most of them are staged and managed by those who hold the purse strings."

Denis Healey

"What makes the difference between a gang and a state is the belief that there is a difference between a gang and a state."

Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski

"The psychopaths are always around. In calm times we study them, but in times of upheaval, they rule over us."

Ernst Kretschmer

"Mental slavery is the worst form of Slavery. It gives you the illusion of freedom, makes you trust, love and defend your oppressor while making an enemy of those who are trying to free you or open your eyes."

Words Of Wisdom

"America was conceived in violence. Americans are attracted to violence. They attach themselves to processed violence, out of cans. They’re TV – hypnotized. TV is the invisible protective shield against bare reality. Twentieth-century culture’s disease is the inability to feel their reality. People cluster to TV, soap operas, movie, theatre, pop idols, and they have wild emotion over symbols. But in reality of their own lives, they’re emotionally dead."

Jim Morrison

"The fact that Angela Merkel has been named the most powerful woman in the world is a farce. She is not even the most powerful woman in her own country. The fact that newspapers are now writing that Ursula von der Leyen is the second most powerful woman in Germany is a deliberate attempt by the press to dumb down the public. The two most powerful women in this country are Liz Mohn and Friede Springer – Bertelsmann and Bild Group. The Bild newspaper, which already carries the illiteracy of this country in its name. Bertelsmann and Bild are the vociferous heralds of a moribund system that is dangling from the strings of money lenders worldwide. A wave of Friede Springer's hand is enough, and the hired writers will finally dethrone the chancellor and throw her to her own party to be devoured. Perhaps we will see this happen soon. Those who are truly powerful are certain that they have already lost the favor of the people. That is what makes the chancellor so valuable. For as long as she has the favor of the people, she will be needed. But only as long as she has the favor of those in power will she be able to do so. In biology, this is called symbiosis. But when it is at the expense of the host animal, it is called parasitic symbiosis, and unfortunately, we are the host animal."

Georg Schramm alias Lothar Dombrowski

"Beneath the broad tides of human history there flow the stealthy undercurrents of the secret societies, which frequently determine in the depth the changes that take place upon the surface."

Arthur Edward Waite