Hierarchy Quotes

“The great thing about fact-based decisions is that they overrule the hierarchy.”
― Jeff Bezos

“Because there is nothing, nothing on Urras that we Anarresti need! We left with empty hands, a hundred and seventy years ago, and we were right. We took nothing. Because there is nothing here but States and their weapons, the rich and their lies, and the poor and their misery. There is no way to act rightly, with a clear heart, on Urras. There is nothing you can do that profit does not enter into, and fear of loss, and the wish for power. You cannot say good morning without knowing which of you is ‘superior’ to the other, or trying to prove it. You cannot act like a brother to other people, you must manipulate them, or command them, or obey them, or trick them. You cannot touch another person, yet they will not leave you alone. There is no freedom. It is a box—Urras is a box, a package, with all the beautiful wrapping of blue sky and meadows and forests and great cities. And you open the box, and what is inside it? A black cellar full of dust, and a dead man. A man whose hand was shot off because he held it out to others.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

“Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps”
― Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto

“Today, the mere idea of aristocracy is incompatible with the dominant ideology. But every people needs an aristocracy. It's an integral part of human nature and can't be dispensed with. The question then is not 'For or against aristocracy?' but 'What kind of aristocracy?”
― Guillaume Faye, Why We Fight: Manifesto of the European Resistance

“The middle class were invented to give the poor hope; the poor, to make the rich feel special; the rich, to humble the middle class.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Two ideas are opposed — not concepts or abstractions, but Ideas which were in the blood of men before they were formulated by the minds of men. The Resurgence of Authority stands opposed to the Rule of Money; Order to Social Chaos, Hierarchy to Equality, socio-economico-political Stability to constant Flux; glad assumption of Duties to whining for Rights; Socialism to Capitalism, ethically, economically, politically; the Rebirth of Religion to Materialism; Fertility to Sterility; the spirit of Heroism to the spirit of Trade; the principle of Responsibility to Parliamentarism; the idea of Polarity of Man and Woman to Feminism; the idea of the individual task to the ideal of ‘happiness’; Discipline to Propaganda-compulsion; the higher unities of family, society, State to social atomism; Marriage to the Communistic ideal of free love; economic self-sufficiency to senseless trade as an end in itself; the inner imperative to Rationalism.”
― Francis Parker Yockey, Imperium: Philosophy of History & Politics

“One way or another, we spend our whole lives being conditioned into accepting some line or order, some position of domination or subjection. It’s hard to unlearn such hierarchy, to undo such control. It’s implicit.”
― Cliff James, Of Bodies Changed

“All people want to belong to some sort of hierarchy. Allow me to explain. The rich want to be the richest; the poor want to be the smartest; those who are both rich and smart want to be the better persons; the better persons want to go to heaven; those who are in heaven will look down upon those who are in hell... there is always some kind of hierarchy desired by everyone; even by those who claim the opposite of this. So how do you find true divinity? Divinity is found in those who reach down low; because it is those who are above who must reach down low, while it is those who are below who must constantly reach for what is above! And this is divinity. What is divine, is what will have a curiosity in what is below. There is no fear of becoming "tainted"; because what is lesser can never really taint what is greater. it is what is greater that is able to transform what is lesser. The alchemist must first find the mud, pick it up, before she is able to transform it into diamond. She must first reach into the swamp, in order to pull out roses.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“When it come to creative inspiration, job titles and hierarchy are meaningless.”
― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“He was no stranger to compassion: his heart was open to many good impulses, though his rank often prevented their manifestation.”
― Nikolai Gogol, The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol

“Without agreement on rank and a certain respect for authority there can be no great sensitivity to social rules, as anyone who has tried to teach simple house rules to a cat will agree.”
― Frans de Waal

“All people want to belong to some sort of hierarchy. Allow me to explain. The rich want to be the richest; the poor want to be the smartest; those who are both rich and smart want to be the better persons; the better persons want to go to heaven; those who are in heaven will look down upon those who are in hell... there is always some kind of hierarchy desired by everyone; even by those who claim the opposite of this. So how do you find true divinity? Divinity is found in those who reach down low; because it is those who are above who must reach down low, while it is those who are below who must constantly reach for what is above! And this is divinity. What is divine, is what will have a curiosity in what is below. There is no fear of becoming "tainted"; because what is lesser can never really taint what is greater. it is what is greater than is able to transform what is lesser. The alchemist must first find the mud, pick it up, before she is able to transform it into diamond.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“It is a truth widely recognized that tyranny stems from the consent of the governed as much as democracy does.”
― Eric Robert Morse, Juggernaut: Why The System Crushes The Only People Who Can Save It

“There's a problem with the hierarchical orientation, though. When the numbers get too big, the thing breaks down. A pecking order can hold only so many chickens.”
― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

“The violence of hierarchy is the violence that the powerful use against the dispossessed to keep them subordinated. As an example, the violence committed for wealth is socially invisible or committed at enough of a distance that its beneficiaries don't have to be aware of it. This type of violence has defined every imperialist war in the history of the US that has been fought to get access to "natural resources" for corporations to turn into the cheap consumer goods that form the basis of the American way of life.”
― Lierre Keith, Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet

“Maybe it is not a coincidence that, even in heaven, under the perspective of the Bible, there is a hierarchy. After all, what better way to impose the “benefits” of accepting the power of a hierarchy in the human mind?”
― Miguel Reynolds Brandao, The Sustainable Organisation - a paradigm for a fairer society: Think about sustainability in an age of technological progress and rising inequality

“No emotion was supposed to cross the great divide of class. Affection could erase all hierarchy; in this was the danger, and the delight.”
― Damon Galgut, Arctic Summer

“As managers rise up the hierarchy, a host of situational forces come to bear on them which can easily undermine their respect for the people on the front lines, and hence cause them to disregard the value in front-line ideas.”
― Dean M. Schroeder, The Idea-Driven Organization: Unlocking the Power in Bottom-Up Ideas

“Am I drunk?" he asked Crewcut.
"You're not drunk, Boss," Crewcut replied. "How could a superior individual like you be drunk? People around here who get drunk are the dregs of society, illiterates, uncouth people. Highbrow folks, those of the 'spring snow,' cannot get drunk. You're a highbrow, therefore you cannot be drunk.”
― Mo Yan, The Republic of Wine

“Money, dished out in quantities fitting the context, is a social lubricant here. It eases passage even as it maintains hierarchies. Fifty naira for the man who helps you back out from the parking spot, two hundred naira for the police officer who stops you for no good reason in the dead of night, ten thousand for the clearing agent who helps you bring your imported crate through customs. For each transaction, there is a suitable amount that helps things on their way. No one else seems to worry, as I do, that the money demanded by someone whose finger hovers over the trigger of a AK-47 is less a tip than a ransom. I feel that my worrying about it is a luxury that few can afford. For many Nigerians, the giving and receiving of bribes, tips, extortion money, or alms--the categories are fluid--is not thought of in moral terms. It is seen either as a mild irritant or as an opportunity. It is a way of getting things done, neither more nor less than what money is there for.”
― Teju Cole, Every Day Is for the Thief

“The strength of a human being is in one's hierarchical level, characterised by say separation from physiological needs upwards.”
― Priyavrat Thareja

“If one assumes, as I do, that battery is caused by the belief permeating this culture that hierarchical rule and coercive authority are natural, then all our relationships tend to be based on power and domination, and thus all forms of battery are linked.”
― Bell Hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center

“Enhän minä mitään, kunhan kaivan tällä hopealusikalla tätä routaista maata, kohmeisin käsin, kun ei muutakaan tekoa minulla, voi sentään miten hankalaa tämäkin on...”
― Anu Silfverberg, Luonto pakastimessa

“Japanese universities have a chair system that is a fixed hierarchy. This has its merits when trying to work as a laboratory on one theme. But if you want to do original work you must start young, and young people are limited by the chair system. Even if students cannot become assistant professors at an early age they should be encouraged to do original work.

...Industry is more likely to put its research effort into its daily business. It is very difficult for it to become involved in pure chemistry. There is a need to encourage long-range research, even if we don't know its goal and if its application is unknown.”
― Kenichi Fukui

“Social ascendency, innocently disguised as high fashion, good taste or prestigious expenditure, was the same the world over.”
― John Keay

“Whatever the religion, we are formatted to accept hierarchy without any questions and while most management studies discuss business models, organisation and power structure, they seldom question the different types of hierarchies. One has to wonder if this hierarchy really is an absolute truth…”
― Miguel Reynolds Brandao, The Sustainable Organisation - a paradigm for a fairer society: Think about sustainability in an age of technological progress and rising inequality

“In terms of organisational models and human relationship models, humankind has not evolved much over the last millennia.”
― Miguel Reynolds Brandao, The Sustainable Organisation - a paradigm for a fairer society: Think about sustainability in an age of technological progress and rising inequality

“In terms of organisational models and human relationship models, humankind has not evolved much over the last millennia. In fact, most organisations still heavily rely on strong hierarchical models, where power, greed and internal competition are the main driving forces.”
― Miguel Reynolds Brandao, The Sustainable Organisation - a paradigm for a fairer society: Think about sustainability in an age of technological progress and rising inequality

“Abolishing hierarchies thus means that people would not have set roles or tasks, but rather that these are in line with their skills and the necessary performance at a given time”
― Miguel Reynolds Brandao, The Sustainable Organisation - a paradigm for a fairer society: Think about sustainability in an age of technological progress and rising inequality

“Instead it is the Church hierarchy that is rather teaching congregation to be afraid of darkness, instead of teaching them to go with light to overcome darkness.”
― Sunday Adelaja