"It is no bad thing to be a king - to see one's house enriched and one's authority enhanced." (Homer, "The Odyssey", cca. 750-700 BC)
"Even the best of men in authority are liable to be corrupted by passion. We may conclude then that the law is reason without passion, and it is therefore preferable to any individual." (Aristotle, "Politics", cca. 335-323 BC)
"An evil nature wielding great authority brings misfortune upon the community." (Aeschines, "Ctesiphontem", 330 BC)
"Old age, especially an honored old age, has so great authority, that this is of more value than all the pleasures of youth." (Marcus Tullius Cicero, "Cato Maior de Senectute" ["On Old Age"], 44 BC)
"Almost all the opinions we have are taken on authority and on credit." (Michel de Montaigne, "De la phisionomie" ["Of Physiognomy"], 1588)
"For rightly is truth called the daughter of time, not of authority." (Francis Bacon, "Novum Organum", 1620)
"Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish." (Anne Bradstreet, "Meditations Divine and Moral", 1666)
"Lawful and settled authority is very seldom resisted when it is well employed." (Samuel Johnson, The Rambler no. 50, 1750)
"Authority - the fact, namely, that something has already happened or been said or decided, is of great value; but it is only a pedant who demands authority for everything." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Maxims and Reflections", 1833)
"Wherever there is a man who exercises authority, there is a man who resists authority." (Oscar Wilde, "The Soul of Man Under Socialism", 1895)
"Always acknowledge a fault frankly. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you opportunity to commit more." (Mark Twain, "More Maxims of Mark", 1927)
"Man cannot do without beauty, and this is what our era pretends to want to disregard. It steels itself to attain the absolute and authority; it wants to transfigure the world before having exhausted it, to set it to rights before having understood it. Whatever it may say, our era is deserting this world." (Albert Camus,"Helen's Exile", 1948)
"I accept nothing on authority. A hypothesis must be backed by reason, or else it is worthless." (Isaac Asimov, "I, Robot", 1950)
"Objective evidence is the ultimate authority. Recorders may lie, but Nature is incapable of it." (Walter M Miller Jr, "A Canticle for Leibowitz", 1959)
"Believing things on authority only means believing them because you have been told them by someone you think trustworthy. Ninety-nine per cent of the things you believe are believed on authority. [...] Every historical event in the world is believed on authority." (Clive S Lewis, "Mere Christianity", 1961)
"Freedom of conscience entails more dangers than authority and despotism." (Michel Foucault, "Madness and Civilization", 1961)
"The robots are not technologically minded. They were not built to be. They were built to bolster human vanity and pride, to meet a strange longing that seems to be built into the human ego - the need to have other humans (or a reasonable facsimile of other humans) to minister to our wants and needs, human slaves to be dominated, human beings over which a man or woman (or a child) can assert authority, thus building up a false feeling of superiority." (Clifford D Simak, "A Choice of Gods", 1972)
"It is unusual for us to discover an imperial power-system in space. As a rule, such archaic forms of authority wither long before the relevant species drags itself off the home planet." (Iain M Banks, "The Player of Games", 1988)
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