The Notion of Authority Quotes

“Authority and the ‘recognition’ of Authority are one and the same thing...”
― Alexandre Kojève, The Notion of Authority: A Brief Presentation

“Authority is therefore necessarily a relation (between agent and patient): it is an essentially social (rather than individual) phenomenon; there have to be at least two in order for Authority to exist. THEREFORE: Authority is the possibility that an agent has of acting on others (or on another) without these others reacting against him, despite being capable to do so.”
― Alexandre Kojève, The Notion of Authority: A Brief Presentation

“A Past is always ‘venerable’; tampering with it is ‘sacrilegious’; to neglect it is ‘inhuman’.”
― Alexandre Kojève, The Notion of Authority: A Brief Presentation

“a Revolution is never realised. In so far as something is realised, this something ceases to be revolutionary. Revolution is always something that is being realised, that is in the process of becoming.”
― Alexandre Kojève, The Notion of Authority: A Brief Presentation