Authority Figures Quotes

• My only purpose is to teach children to rebel against authority figures.

  Sherman Alexie

  Children, Rebel, Purpose

  Interview with Rob Capriccioso, www.identitytheory.com. March 23, 2003.

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• Authority figures are so irritating. Because they always tell you to do things for reasons that aren't very good. That sums up what authority is about for me.

  Rupert Everett

  Reason, Authority, Figures

  7 Copy quote

• People are so afraid of authority figures and doctors are authority figures.

  Martha Beck

  Doctors, People, Medical

  7 Copy quote
• 

  Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Life Changing, Epic, Power

  87 Copy quote

• Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority.

  Thomas Huxley

  Education, Knowledge, Authority And Power

  Thomas Henry Huxley, Cyril Bibby (1971). “T. H. Huxley on Education”, p.72, Cambridge University Press

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• I had to take responsibility, even if it meant saying no to an authority figure, because I was the authority on me.

  Kelley Armstrong

  Responsibility, Saying No, Authority

  Kelley Armstrong (2010). “The Reckoning: The Darkest Powers Trilogy”, p.108, Penguin Group

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Listen to authority figures because of their position, but only believe them if they can explain why.

  Tucker Max

  Believe, Authority, Figures

  3 Copy quote

• Authority figures always attract trouble

  J. K. Rowling

  Trouble, Authority, Figures

  3 Copy quote

• It can be tempting to blame others for our loss of direction. We get lots of information about life but little education in life from parents, teachers, and other authority figures who should know better from their experience. Information is about facts. Education is about wisdom and the knowledge of how to love and survive.

  Bernie Siegel

  Education, Teacher, Loss

  6 Copy quote

• There have, for years, been comparative studies of religious fanaticism and factors that correlate with it. By and large, it tends to decline with increasing industrialization and education. The US, however, is off the chart, ranking near devastated peasant societies. About 1/2 the population believe the world was created a few thousand years ago: the justification for the belief is that that is what they were ordered to believe by authority figures to whom they were taught one must subordinate oneself. And on, and on.

  Noam Chomsky

  Religious, Believe, Years

  Source: chomsky.info

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The pressure to conform to an authority figure or peer group can cause people to behave in shocking ways.

  Mike Lofgren

  Evil, People, Peers

  Mike Lofgren (2012). “The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted”, p.120, Penguin

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• Mark Twain is a universe, and he is also a kind of American authority figure. He can say things to America that other people can't say, in a way that can truly be heard.

  Val Kilmer

  America, People, Way

  4 Copy quote

• Despite their tremendous talent, (NBA players) are still, by and large, young adults, seeking validation from an authority figure, and there is no greater authority figure on a team than the coach. Needless to say, in today's warped, self-indulgent climate, too many players couldn't care less about appeasing the coach.

  Phil Jackson

  Team, Player, Nba

  6 Copy quote

• A father has to be a provider, a teacher, a role model, but most importantly, a distant authority figure who can never be pleased. Otherwise, how will children ever understand the concept of God?

  Stephen Colbert

  Teacher, Children, Father

  "I Am America (And So Can You!)". Book by Stephen Colbert. Part One: "My American Childhood", Chapter One: "The Family", 2007.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Pain is real when you get other people to believe in it. If no one believes in it but you, your pain is madness or hysteria or your own unfeminine inadequacy. Women have learned to submit to pain by hearing authority figures - doctors, priests, psychiatrists - tell us that what we feel is not pain.

  Naomi Wolf

  Pain, Real, Believe

  "The Beauty Myth". Book by Naomi Wolf, 1990.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• The world needs women who stop asking for permission from the principal. Permission to live their lives as they deeply know they often should. I think we still look to authority figures for validation, recognition, permission.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Thinking, Validation, Needs

  "Elizabeth Gilbert, ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ Author, On What It Takes To Get Inspired". Interview with Chantal Pierrat, www.huffingtonpost.com. August 11, 2013.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• Single parents in particular may have trouble maintaining themselves as authority figures because of underlying guilt; they feel acontinuing sense that they have deprived their kids of the second parent, and so they tend to give in to the children's requests, even when unreasonable.

  Marge M. Kennedy

  Children, Kids, Discipline

  5 Copy quote

• A lot of authority figures want to be good. I sense that, and yet at the same time I sense that authority, after a while, always leads to some kind of oppression. When the minority report comes in, what you do is run the minority out of town with a flaming cross. It's just the way things are.

  Stephen King

  Running, Minorities, Want

  Stephen King, Tim Underwood, Chuck Miller (1988). “Bare bones: conversations on terror with Stephen King”, McGraw-Hill Companies

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• When we were on acid, we would go into the woods, because there was less chance that you would run into an authority figure. But we ran into a bear. My friend Duane was there, raising his right hand, swearing to help prevent forest fires. He told me, "Mitchell, Smokey is way more intense in person!"

  Mitch Hedberg

  Funny, Running, Humor

  19 Copy quote

• I was petrified because all my friends would be going to Washington, DC, to protest. I was sixteen, and I was like, "I don't think I'll be going with you guys," just because I was scared. Then you saw the news, and cops - not students in schools with guns - cops are killing sixteen year old protesters on the news. To me that was more horrifying, to have the authority figures actually killing people on the evening news, than to have another student firing a gun.

  Gus Van Sant

  School, Gun, Thinking

  Source: www.aboutfilm.com

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• Fame doesn't redeem you. It takes a long time to get there, and when you're finally there, you realise you still have authority figures telling you what to do.

  Cyndi Lauper

  Long, Fame, Authority

  "Cyndi Lauper: This much I know". Interview With Priya Elan, www.theguardian.com. October 20, 2012.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• When you have an authority figure tell you something that distinguishes you, there's a little bit of a badge of courage or pride point that comes with it, and also some relief that the grownups actually have an answer for the problem. But, at the same time, there's suspicion and defensiveness, like, Why is the way I do things a problem? Maybe the way you do things is the problem. All of these things come with the very notion that you've been described.

  Lucy Corin

  Pride, Relief, Answers

  Source: therumpus.net

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• So to me, what the drugs and addiction are saying is that I deserve to feel good, I'm allowed to take this because look how I was treated as a child. Our authority figures, particularly our parents are hypnotic. Their words are hypnotic literally to small children because of brain wave patterns.

  Bernie Siegel

  Children, Addiction, Feel Good

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• At home in Ireland, there's a habit of avoidance, an ironical attitude towards the authority figure.

  Seamus Heaney

  Attitude, Home, Figure Skating

  40 Copy quote

• The kind of "blind obedience" once theologized as the ultimate step to holiness, is itself blind. It blinds a person to the insights and foresight and moral perspective of anyone other than an authority figure.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Perspective, Holiness, Steps

  8 Copy quote