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:
“The members of a body-politic call it “the state” when it is passive, “the sovereign” when it is active, and a “power” when they compare it with others of its kind. Collectively they use the title “people,” and they refer to one another individually as “citizens” when speaking of their participation in the authority of the sovereign, and as “subjects” when speaking of their subordination to the laws of the state.”
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)
“Women who assume authority are unnatural. Unnatural women are lesbians. Therefore all the leaders of the women’s movement were presumed to be lesbians.”
—Jane O’Reilly, U.S. feminist and humorist. The Girl I Left Behind, ch. 8 (1980)
“Death is the sanction of everything the story-teller can tell. He has borrowed his authority from death.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)