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:
“Does it follow that I reject all authority? Perish the thought. In the matter of boots, I defer to the authority of the bootmaker.”
—Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876)
“Death is the sanction of everything the story-teller can tell. He has borrowed his authority from death.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“The function of literature, through all its mutations, has been to make us aware of the particularity of selves, and the high authority of the self in its quarrel with its society and its culture. Literature is in that sense subversive.”
—Lionel Trilling (1905–1975)