Quotes about Authority

If there is no absolute by which to judge society, society is absolute.

I think that the essence of a free and civilized society is that everything in it should be subject to criticism, that all forms of authority, should be treated with a certain reservation.

When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion—its message becomes meaningless.

Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion—its message becomes meaningless.

If you want to test a man's character, give him power.

Two principles have stood face-to-face from the beginning of time; and they will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings.

If at any point on or in the vicinity of the military line, which is now used between the City Philadelphia and the City of Washington, via Perryville, Annapolis City, and Annapolis Junction, you find resistance which renders it necessary to suspend the writ of Habeas Corpus for the public safety, you, personally or through the officer in command at the point where the resistance occurs, are authorized to suspend that writ.

let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own and his children's liberty.

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

This is the essence of Kingdom Authority. Fathers can have no authority in the home until they have surrendered to the headship of Jesus. Mothers cannot pray with authority for their children when they have no submissive spirit to their own husbands. Pastors cannot lead, teach, or preach with anointing and supernatural power without being fully broken and surrendered to the lordship of Christ, the authority of the Word, and the commands of the Spirit.

Remember again the principle: We will never be over those things that God has set under us until we learn to be under those things that God has placed over us. There is strength through surrender.

Persuasion is better than force.