Authorised Quotes & Sayings

I maintain that any writer of a book is fully authorised in attaching any meaning he likes to a word or phrase he intends to use. If I find an author saying, at the beginning of his book, "Let it be understood that by the word 'black' I shall always mean 'white,' and by the word 'white' I shall always mean 'black,'" I meekly accept his ruling, however injudicious I think it. — Lewis Carroll

Feel that it had not been the most direful mistake in his plan of education. Something must have been wanting within, or time would have worn away much of its ill effect. He feared that principle, active principle, had been wanting, that they had never been properly taught to govern their inclinations and tempers, by that sense of duty which can alone suffice. They had been instructed theoretically in their religion, but never required to bring it into daily practice. To be distinguished for elegance and accomplishments - the authorised object of their youth - could have had no useful influence that way, no moral effect on the mind. He had meant them to be good, but his cares had been directed to the understanding and manners, not the disposition; and of the necessity of self-denial and humility, he feared they had never heard from any lips that could profit them. — Jane Austen

NO ADMITTANCE.
NOT EVEN TO AUTHORISED PERSONNEL.
YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME HERE.
GO AWAY. — Douglas Adams

You have to start by changing the story you tell yourself
about getting older... The minute you say to yourself, 'Time
is everything, and I'm going to make sure that time is used
the way I dream it should be used,' then you've got a whole
different story. — Diane Sawyer

When you authorised Congress to borrow money, and to contract debts, for carrying on the late war, you could not intend to abridge them of the means of paying their engagements, made on your account. You may observe that their future power is confined to provide common defence and general welfare of the United States. If they apply money to any other purposes, they exceed their powers. The people of the United States who pay, are to be judges how far their money is properly applied. — David Ramsey

In this country any kind of printing was forbidden unless authorised. — Anna Funder

There are some concrete ways to create a winning attitude. But nothing beats practicing it. When you prepare to win, belief comes easily. — Pat Summitt

If you want to understand opposition to climate action, follow the money. — Paul Krugman

Throughout, the work of Tyndale formed the foundation, and more than anyone else he established the rhythms and furnished much of the language which is familiar to us in the Authorised Version. — Frederic G. Kenyon

Every American president, regardless of party, has said that America has an intense interest in a peaceful resolution. And I think it should be left at that. — Henry A. Kissinger

You know also that the beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily taken. Quite true. And shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up? We cannot. Then the first thing will be to establish a censorship of the writers of fiction, and let the censors receive any tale of fiction which is good, and reject the bad; and we will desire mothers and nurses to tell their children the authorised ones only. — Plato

Each day when the train stopped, we'd lean out of the car and try to count the number of bodies thrown. It grew every day. I noticed Jonas kept track of the children, making marks with a stone on the floor board of the car. I looked at his marks and imagined drawing little heads atop each one - hair, eyes, a nose, and a mouth. — Ruta Sepetys

Girls seemed to like artists! I felt very drawn to the idea of power, really, and doing painting as a power trip, in a sense. This idea of power has always driven me. — Malcolm Morley

THE ONLY WAY TO GET RID OF THE FEAR OF DOING SOMETHING IS TO GO OUT AND DO IT. — Susan Jeffers

the killing of dangerous Rioters, by any private Persons, who cannot otherwise suppress them, or defend themselves from Them, inasmuch as every private Person seems to be authorised by the Law to arm himself for the Purposes aforesaid. — Stephen P. Halbrook

The want of punctuality is a want of honest principle; for however people may think themselves authorised to rob God and themselves of their own time, they can plead no right to lay a violent hand on the time and duties of their neighbor. — Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna

The comparative view of the powers of the magistrates, in two remarkable instances, is alone sufficient to represent the whole system of German manners. The disposal of the landed property within their district was absolutely vested in their hands, and they distributed it every year according to a new division. At the same time, they were not authorised to punish with death, to imprison, or even to strike, a private citizen. — Edward Gibbon

I went to America in the winter of 1872-73, authorised to secure, if I could, the passage of a bill demonetising silver. It was in the interest of those I represented - the governors of the Bank of England - to have it done. By 1873, gold coins were the only form of coin money. — Ernest Seyd

the former; "our arrangement thus made, you have nothing to fear from me." He sat down in a chair on the hearth, over against Mr. Lorry. When they were alone, Mr. Lorry asked him what he had done? "Not much. If it should go ill with the prisoner, I have ensured access to him, once." Mr. Lorry's countenance fell. "It is all I could do," said Carton. "To propose too much, would be to put this man's head under the axe, and, as he himself said, nothing worse could happen to him if he were denounced. It was obviously the weakness of the position. There is no help for it. — Charles Dickens

Some would fight for any cause, some for none at all. — George R R Martin

We had a lengthy discussion of the difficulties I had had working on other biographies and the efforts made by Martha Gellhorn, Susan Sontag and others to prevent publication. Gellhorn's representative, Bill Buford, sent a threatening letter to my publisher. Michael, a journalist first, called Buford a "dirty dog." I never dreamed, then, that he, too, would, in the end, assume a rather high-handed attitude towards my manuscript, ordering me to make changes and deferring to the feelings of others. On this day, I said: "I don't respond well to those threats. I don't allow them to intimidate me." "We don't believe in authorised biographies," Michael concluded. "All authorised biographies are hereby condemned." I would remember these words later when Michael the Apostate appeared. — Carl Rollyson

All over the world, belief in the supernatural has authorised the sacrifice of people to propitiate bloodthirsty gods, and the murder of witches for their malevolent powers. — Steven Pinker

More than two hundred death penalties are gone from the law books, but the [biblical] texts that authorised them remain. — Mark Twain

The foulest damage to our political life comes not from the 'secrets' which they hide from us, but from the little bits of half-truth and disinformation which they do tell us. These are already pre-digested, and then are sicked up as little gobbits of authorised spew. The columns of defense correspondents in the establishment sheets serve as the spittoons. — E.P. Thompson

Whether to the nation or to the state, no service can be or ever will be rendered by a more able or a more faithful public servant. — John Quincy Adams

Married women, you know, may be safely authorised. It is my party. Leave it all to me. I will invite your guests."
"No," he calmly replied, there is but one married woman in the world whom I can ever allow to invite what guests she pleases to Donwell, and that one is-"
"Mrs. Weston, I suppose," interrupted Mrs. Elton, rather mortified.
"No, Mrs. Knightley; and, till she is in being, I will manage such matters myself. — Jane Austen

Who authorised the spend of millions of pounds and thousands of man hours into a stale, historical situation from three decades ago - with virtually no complaints made? — Jonathan King

You [demagogues] are like the fishers for eels; in still waters they catch nothing, but if they thoroughly stir up the slime, their fishing is good; in the same way it's only in troublous times that you line your pockets. — Aristophanes

Translation is not appropriation, as is sometimes claimed; it is a form of listening that then changes how you speak. — Eliot Weinberger

To be a Christian is to believe we are commanded and authorised to say certain things to the world; to say things that will make disciples of all nations. — Rowan Williams