Life & Wisdom Quote by Tom Robbins

Respect isn’t something you can requisition with a badge, a podium, or a policy memo. Tom Robbins’ line slices through the lazy assumption that authority automatically deserves deference, treating respect not as a tax citizens owe but as a kind of social contract: legitimacy is earned, then renewed, then earned again.

The wit is in the wordplay. “Respected” and “respectable” look like synonyms until Robbins weaponizes the gap between them. Being respected is an outcome; being respectable is a condition. Authority loves outcomes because they can be demanded. Respectability, though, is harder: it implies conduct, restraint, consistency, even a faint whiff of moral hygiene. Robbins is effectively saying: you don’t get to skip the character test and still collect the loyalty.

The subtext is an anti-mysticism of power. In a culture that trains people to confuse confidence with competence and rank with wisdom, Robbins insists on a more intimate metric: does this authority behave in ways that would make sense without the title? If the answer is no, the authority isn’t just flawed; it’s counterfeit.

Context matters because Robbins is a novelist steeped in counterculture skepticism, the sort of writer who treats institutions the way a street comedian treats a heckler: with gleeful scrutiny. Read now, the line feels almost too current - a neat verdict on leaders who perform dominance while outsourcing responsibility. It doesn’t flatter rebellion for its own sake; it simply refuses to confuse power with worth.