Resistance To Authority Quotes & Sayings

There is no inherent awakening power in cultural forms that have become dissociated from the wisdom and practicality that gave birth to them. They turn into illusions themselves and become part of the drama of religious culture. Although they can make us happy temporarily, they can't free us from suffering, so at some point, they become a source of disappointment and discouragement. Eventually, these forms may inspire nothing more than resistance to their authority. — Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

This open resistance to [Parliament's] authority can only have found place among the lower and more ignorant of the people. — Henry Seymour Conway

You have to be the nourishment for other people's souls until they learn to feed on God. Oswald Chambers — Oswald Chambers

Political agitation, by the passions it arouses or the convictions it engenders, may in fact stimulate men to the violation of the law. Detestation of existing policies is easily transformed into forcible resistance of the authority which puts them in execution, and it would be folly to disregard the causal relation between the two. Yet to assimilate agitation, legitimate as such, with direct incitement to violent resistance, is to disregard the tolerance of all methods of political agitation which in normal times is a safeguard of free government. — Learned Hand

In theatre, presence is the matrix of power; the postmodern theatre of resistance must therefore both expose the collusion of presence with authority and resist such collusion by refusing to establish itself as the charismatic Other. — Philip Auslander

When we see the need for deep change, we usually see it as something that needs to take place in someone else. In our roles of authority, such as parent, teacher, or boss, we are particularly quick to direct others to change. Such directives often fail, and we respond to the resistance by increasing our efforts. The power struggle that follows seldom results in change or brings about excellence. One of the most important insights about the need to bring about deep change in others has to do with where deep change actually starts. — Robert E. Quinn

Questioning authority doesn't make you resistant; who should follow blindly without knowing the destination — LDarnell

I mean, time for me, I can make it go slow or fast, however I please. That's how I know it doesn't exist. — Willow Smith

Thought as such ... is an act of negation, of resistance to that which is forced upon it; this is what thought has inherited from its archetype, the relation between labor and material. Today, when ideologues tend more than ever to encourage thought to be positive, they cleverly note that positivity runs precisely counter to thought, and that it takes friendly persuasion by social authority to accustom thought to positivity. — Theodor W. Adorno

Congress has never since effectively asserted itself to stop a president with a bead on war. It was true of George Herbert Walker Bush. It was true of Bill Clinton. And by September 11, 2001, even if there had been real resistance to Vice President Cheney and President George W. Bush starting the next war (or two), there were no institutional barriers strong enough to have realistically stopped them. By 9/11, the war-making authority in the United States had become, for all intents and purposes, uncontested and unilateral: one man's decision to make. It wasn't supposed to be like this. — Rachel Maddow

Things like rebellion and resistance to authority are absolutely as much a part of the human experience as love and cars are, and it's a part that doesn't get covered very much in pop music. — Tom Morello

I believe in the magic and authority of words. — Rene Char

If Jefferson's leadership is to be set apart from others similarly situated later on, it should not be because he was inclined to finesse a frontal assault on the old [Federalist] governmental establishment, but because he transformed national politics so thoroughly without being forced into any make-or-break confrontation with it. Jefferson pursued the reconstruction of American government and politics relentlessly, and the regime he created in the end was profoundly different from the one he displaced. Yet, the most remarkable aspect of his transformation is how little resistance he encountered in the process from the institutions and interests previously attached to the old order. Jefferson's authority to reconstruct proved singularly disarming and all-encompassing. — Stephen Skowronek

This power, this authority, Soviet power: they killed everybody who could make any resistance, who could explain his own way of thinking and who could follow his own way of thinking, of believing. — Vladimir Bukovsky

I DON'T TRUST THE CHURCH. If someone doesn't trust the church enough to give or be involved, this probably indicates another underlying issue, possibly a lack of trust in and resistance to authority in general. In any case, if someone can't be led to trust their church, they should probably find a church they can trust and go there instead. — Jamie Munson

When I first came into this world, Elvis was already fat. — Jane Wagner

Culture jamming is enjoying a resurgence, in part because of technological advancements but also more pertinently, because of the good old rules of supply and demand. Something not far from the surfaces of the public psyche is delighted to see the icons of corporate power subverted and mocked. There is, in short, a market for it. With commercialism able to overpower the traditional authority of religion, politics and schools, corporations have emerged a the natural targets for all sorts of free-floating rage and rebellion. The new ethos that culture jamming taps into is go-for-the-corporate-jugular. — Naomi Klein

In a world where we seem to be beset by a trend towards 'manualising treatment modalities' the person-centred approach stands and says NO, that is not the way forward. — Richard Bryant-Jefferies

It is because peaceful agitation and passive resistance are effective that I uphold them, and it is because force strengthens tyranny that I condemn it. War and Authority are companions; Peace and Liberty are companions. It is foolish in the extreme not only to resort to force before necessity compels, but especially to madly create the conditions that will lead to this necessity. — Benjamin Tucker

For police themselves, the consequence of [911 policing] has been the emergence of a siege mentality...the alienation of officers from the communities they police interferes with the effective exercise of their basic authority, forcing police to rely inordinately on the use of force. As strangers, police feel compelled to draw upon 'preemptively coercive means such as intimidation and threats' if not the direct application of force...not only is such coercion antithetical to policing a democracy, it may create the very resistance it is intended to forestall, and lead to self-fulfilling prophecies and a downward spiral in which police become more aggressive and youths embittered and resistant. — George Kelling

I fully support your efforts to stamp out sexual assault in the United States military and believer that there is nothing in (Military Justice Improvement Act) that is inconsistent with the responsibility or authority of command. Your efforts in this regard have much broader implications that will actually strengthen the 'good order and discipline' of our military, which I believe accounts for much of the resistance that S967 is receiving ... Protecting the victims of these abuses and restoring American values to our military culture is long overdue. — Dave McGinnis

It may be that you, my dear X, recognise something of yourself in these instances; a disposition to resistance, however slight, against arbitrary authority or witless mass opinion, or a thrill of recognition when you encounter some well-wrought phrase from a free intelligence. If so, let us continue to correspond so that I may draw from your experience even as you flatter me by asking to draw upon mine. For the moment, do bear in mind that the cynics have a point, of a sort, when they speak of the "professional nay-sayer." To be in opposition is not to be a nihilist. And there is no decent or charted way of making a living at it. It is something you are, and not something you do. — Christopher Hitchens

The ultimate authority resides in the people, and that if the federal government got too powerful and overstepped its authority, then the people would develop plans of resistance and resort to arms. — James Madison

I will make you a fisher of men — Anonymous

I developed a resistance to authority. Not to discipline - I learned that. But to authority. I like to think for myself. And I like to cause trouble. — Hal Holbrook

Resistance is a holy right for the Palestinian people to face the Israeli occupation. Nobody should forget that the Palestinian people negotiated for 10 years and accepted difficult and humiliating agreements, and in the end didn't get anything except authority over the people, and no authority over land, or sovereignty. — Marwan Barghouti

Whilst every principle of authority and resistance has been pushed, upon both sides, as far as it would go, there is nothing so solid and certain, either in reasoning or in practice, that has not been shaken. — Edmund Burke

But further, Hobbesian individualism required that traditional independent social authorities be eliminated or suppressed. Benjamin Constant, who was a keen observer of the French Revolution, explained why: "The interests and memories which spring from local customs contain a germ of resistance which is so distasteful to authority that it hastens to uproot it. Authority finds private individuals easier game: its enormous weight can flatten them out effortlessly as if they were so much sand. — Donald W. Livingston

We must do our utmost to preserve our British ally's strategic independence from Europe. — Richard Perle

I don't really want to play parts that I think are not fully developed or fleshed out, especially with female roles. — Romola Garai

There is nothing so important in the family as the sacred quality of the meal. — Henri Nouwen

3,000 of my neighbors were murdered. My country was, utterly unprovoked, savagely attacked. I wish all those responsible for the atrocity of 9/11 to burn in Hell. — Frank Miller

As one might expect, authoritarianism will at times cause children and students to adopt rebellious positions, defiant of any limit, discipline, or authority. But it will also lead to apathy, excessive obedience, uncritical conformity, lack of resistance against authoritarian discourse, self-abnegation, and fear of freedom. — Paulo Freire

God, you smell nice," he whispered. "I've missed that smell. I've missed everything about you, little Ann. — Wendy Higgins

A smile is a blue sky where the mind can fly. — Debasish Mridha