“I will not bow to an empty hat.”
— william tell
Based on the central act of defiance in the Tell legend as recorded in the White Book of Sarnen (c. 1470) and Tschudi's Chronicon Helveticum. Tell refused to bow to Gessler's hat on the pole in Altdorf, the act that started everything.
Everyone in the square bowed. They saw the hat, they saw the guards, they did the math. I walked past with my son. People say I did not notice it. I noticed it. I just refused. A hat on a pole is not authority. A man with a title is not your master. The moment you bow to something you do not respect, you lose the right to stand up later. They arrested me for it. They made me shoot an apple off my boy's head. But I was still standing. That is the point.