Obedience Quotes

Authority is something from which we are constantly subtracting, of which there remains always a residue, and which we attempt to make smaller and smaller.

No one is able to rule unless he is also able to be ruled.

Obedience is a powerful spiritual medicine. It comes close to being a cure-all.

Personally I declare that I owe the Pope no other obedience than that to Antichrist.

Considering mankind's indifference to freedom, their easy gullibility and their facile response to conditioning, one might very plausibly argue that collectivism is the political mode best suited to their disposition and their capacities. Under its regime, the citizen, like the soldier, is relieved of the burden of initiative and is divested of all responsibility, save for doing as he is told.

I haven't, in the 23 years that I have been in the uniformed services of the United States of America, ever violated an order - not one.

I've seen a lot of patriots and they all died just like anybody else if it hurt bad enough and once they were dead their patriotism was only good for legends; … If you are going to be a great patriot, i.e., loyal to any existing order of government (not one who wishes to destroy the existing for something better), you want to be killed early if your life ....

Every true thinker for himself is so far like a monarch; he is absolute, and recognizes nobody above him. His judgments, like the decrees of a monarch, spring from his own sovereign power and proceed directly from himself. He takes as little notice of authority as a monarch does of a command; nothing is valid unless he has himself authorized it. On the other hand, those of vulgar minds, who are swayed by all kinds of current opinions, authorities, and prejudices, are like the people which in silence obey the law and commands.

I am not ordering you to fight for your country. I am ordering you to die for your country!

I was Chairman Mao's dog. Whomever he told me to bite, I bit.

If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it.

A leader is best when people barely know that he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worst when they despise him. Fail to honor people, They fail to honor you. But of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aims fulfilled, they will all say, "We did this ourselves.

No individual or private group or private organization has the legal power to initiate the use of physical force against other individuals or groups and to compel them to act against their own voluntary choice. Only a government holds that power. The nature of governmental action is: coercive action. The nature of political power is: the power to force obedience under threat of physical injury-the threat of property expropriation, imprisonment, or death.

All power, all subordination to authority rests on the executioner …. Remove this incomprehensible agent from the world and at that very moment order gives way to chaos, thrones topple and society disappears.

Cheap grace is grace without discipleship.

Don’t kneel to me. Kneel only to God and thank Him for your freedom

An army's bravest men are its cowards. The death which they would not meet at the hands of the enemy they will meet at the hands of their officers, with never a flinching.

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.

Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.

We all have the power, intuition, and ability to think and act for ourselves until we give that power away. We give our power away because we're bullied into thinking we aren't good enough and someone else must know better than us; therefore, we should give over our instincts and act according to instruction.

Exhort all your household often that all those who serve you shall know to serve God and you, faithfully and painstakingly, and for the will of God to prefer in all things to do your will and pleasure in all things that are not against God.

He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature of living creatures.

If I get ‘em by the short and curlies, the hearts and minds will follow.

I can no longer obey; I have tasted command, and I cannot give it up.

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.