authority, n.Definitions

Authority is adored by 'the people'.

Authority is all quite degrading... it degrades those who exercise it, and it degrades those over whom it is exercised.

Authority is a solution to the problem we call 'men trying to live together'.

Authority is (as irrational authority) always built upon the buttresses of power on the one side and fear on the other.

Authority is a concept that is disappearing because we no longer have experiences common to all (i.e. Those undisputable things which authority rests upon ).

Authority is strengthened and confirmed by nothing so much as by custom, for no man easily distrusts the things which he and all men have been always bred up to.

Authority is not power... that's coercion. Authority is not knowledge... that's persuasion, or seduction. Authority is simply that the author has the right to make a statement and to be heard.

Authority is not a quality one person 'has,' in the sense that he has property or physical qualities. Authority refers to an interpersonal relation in which one person looks upon another as somebody superior to him.