Authority Quotes – Insights on Power and Leadership

"Government is the illusion of authority, but more importantly government is mind control. Naturally, since if you want people to believe in this fictitious thing called ‘authority’ you first have to mold the minds of the collective to accept this false ideology. This is what government is. It’s the illusion of some “official” group of people out there who get to tell everybody else what to do and how to do it. The truth is there is no such thing as authority, and government is an illusion that we’ve imposed upon ourselves from the irrational thinking of a controlled mind.

It’s generally agreed that the power of government ultimately comes from the people. Governments seem to have rights that individuals do not. And it’s agreed that it is these individuals that make up government. It doesn’t take much critical thinking to realize that individuals are granting power that they don’t possess to a group of other individuals who call themselves ‘government’. One cannot delegate a right that they do not possess individually. This is one of the fundamental reasons why government is completely and utterly fallacious."

Joe Dubs

"Whoever has the power in society determines what can be studied, determines what can be observed, determines what can be thought. Scientists fall in line with the dominant power structure. They have to because the power structure pays the bills."

Danny Minot

"The other side may have more money, more possessions, and all the weapons in the world. But their power is based neither on their money, nor on their possessions, nor on their weapons, but solely on one factor, and that is the ignorance of the majority of people."

Ernst Wolff

"The degree of power to which the representatives of the Society of Jesus had been able to attain in Bavaria was all but absolute. Members of the order were the confessors and preceptors of the electors; hence they had a direct influence upon the policies of government. The censorship of religion had fallen into their eager hands, to the extent that some of the parishes even were compelled to recognize their authority and power. To exterminate all Protestant influence and to render the Catholic establishment complete, they had taken possession of the instruments of public education. It was by Jesuits that the majority of the Bavarian colleges were founded, and by them they were controlled. By them also the secondary schools of the country were conducted."

Adam Weishaupt

"With numbing regularity good people were seen to knuckle under the demands of authority and perform actions that were callous and severe. Men who are in everyday life responsible and decent were seduced by the trappings of authority, by the control of their perceptions, and by the uncritical acceptance of the experimenter’s definition of the situation, into performing harsh acts. A substantial proportion of people do what they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act and without limitations of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority."

Stanley Milgram

"When Sovereigns require a Jesuit’s opinion on any subject, the Jesuit in question is to report the matter to his Superior, who is to lay it before several Jesuits for discussion. The resolution formed after this consultation is supplied to the Jesuit who has been consulted by the Sovereign."

Mutio Vitelleschi

"All these things cause the Father-General [of the Jesuits] to be feared by the Pope and sovereigns… A sovereign who is not their [the Jesuits’] friend will sooner or later experience their vengeance."

Luigi Desanctis

"School is an institution built on the axiom that learning is the result of teaching. And institutional wisdom continues to accept this axiom, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary."

Ivan Illich

"Leadership is not about being in charge. Leadership is about taking care of those in your charge."

Simon O. Sinek

"Most people think leadership is about being in charge. Most people think leadership is about having all the answers and being the most intelligent person or the most qualified person in the room. The irony is that it is the complete opposite. Leadership is about empowering others to achieve things they did not think possible. Leadership is about pointing in the direction, articulating a vision of the world that does not yet exist. Then asking help from others to insure that vision happens."

Simon O. Sinek

"The responsibility of leadership is not to come up with all the ideas but to create an environment in which great ideas can thrive."

Simon O. Sinek

"It is not the genius at the top giving directions that makes people great. It is great people that make the guy at the top look like a genius."

Simon O. Sinek

"The people have the power. All we have to do is awaken the power in the people."

John Lennon

"No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings."

Denis Diderot

"No one can be truly powerful unless he has access to the command of major institutions, for it is over these institutional means of power that the truly powerful are, in the first instance, truly powerful . . ."

Charles Wright Mills

"Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessman's tool is values; the bureaucrat's tool is fear."

Ayn Rand

"The true strength of rulers and empires lies not in armies or emotions, but in the belief of men that they are inflexibly open and truthful and legal. As soon as a government departs from that standard it ceases to be anything more than 'the gang in possession,' and its days are numbered."

H. G. Wells

"Those in authority within institutions and social structures attempt to justify their rule by linking it, as if it were a necessary consequence, with moral symbols, sacred emblems, or legal formulae which are widely believed and deeply internalized. These central conceptions may refer to a god or gods, the 'votes of the majority,' the 'will of the people,' the 'aristocracy of talents or wealth,' to the 'divine right of kings' or to the alleged extraordinary endowment of the person of the ruler himself."

Charles Wright Mills