Distrust of authority should be the first civic duty. Norman Douglas
Authority has every reason to fear the skeptic, for authority can rarely survive in the face of doubt. Vita Sackville-West
We only see the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don’t see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do and how you do it. Rudolph W Giuliani
Obedience to lawful authority is the foundation of manly character. Robert E Lee
Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority. Thomas H. Huxley
Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence. Charles De Gaulle
Authority is not a quality one person ”has,” in the sense that he has property or physical qualities. Authority refers to an interpersonal relation in which one person looks upon another as somebody superior to him. Erich Fromm
Authority is never without hate. Euripides
The defiance of established authority, religious and secular, social and political, as a world-wide phenomenon may well one day be accounted the outstanding event of the last decade. Hannah Arendt
Nothing destroys authority more than the unequal and untimely interchange of power stretched too far and relaxed too much. Francis Bacon
Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself. Lenin
Authority and power are two different things: power is the force by means of which you can oblige others to obey you. Authority is the right to direct and command, to be listened to or obeyed by others. Authority requests power. Power without authority is tyranny. Jacques Maritain
Where the people possess no authority, their rights obtain no respect. George Bancroft