Authority
Authority (from the Latin auctoritas) is a right conferred by recognized social position. Authority often refers to power vested in an individual or organization by the state. Authority can also refer to recognized expertise in an area of academic knowledge. An Authority (capitalized) refers to a governing body upon which certain authority (with lower case a) is vested.
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Famous quotes containing the word authority:
“Contact with men who wield power and authority still leaves an intangible sense of repulsion. It’s very like being in close proximity to faecal matter, the faecal embodiment of something unmentionable, and you wonder what it is made of and when it acquired its historically sacred character.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“The authority of any governing institution must stop at its citizens’ skin.”
—Gloria Steinem (b. 1934)
“For words are wise men’s counters, they do but reckon by them; but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever, if but a man.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)