Quotes on Obedience

It cannot be said too often that actions are good or bad in the light of consequences, and that a clear perception of consequences would control actions. That which increases the sum of human happiness is moral; and that which diminishes the sum of human happiness is immoral. . . . Blind, unreasoning obedience is the enemy of morality.

Careful obedience to God’s law may serve as a strategy for rebelling against God

The audience will teach you how to act and the audience will teach you how to write and to direct. The classroom will teach you how to obey, and obedience in the theatre will get you nowhere. It’s a soothing falsity.

If you give way, you will instantly have to meet some greater demand, as having been frightened into obedience in the first instance; while a firm refusal will make them clearly understand that they must treat you more as equals.

Giving is more than a responsibility-it is a privilege; more than an act of obedience-it is evidence of our faith.

The fullest life is impossible without an immovable belief in a Living Law in obedience to which the whole universe moves.

Wise guidance never violates people's Free Will. A superior who demands obedience of his subordinates should show respect for their capacity to understand, and also for their Innate Right to their own Free Will.

I follow nature as the surest guide, and resign myself with implicit obedience to her sacred ordinances.

Ethics is obedience to the unenforceable.

In obedience there is always fear, and fear darkens the mind.

Obedience to the call of Christ nearly always costs everything to two people- the one who is called, and the one who loves that one.

There is no justification without sanctification, no forgiveness without renewal of life, no real faith from which the fruits of new obedience do not grow.

Give obedience where 'tis truly owed.

The uniformity and obedience of the media, which any dictator would admire...

As for freedom, it will soon cease to exist in any shape or form. Living will depend upon absolute obedience to a strict set of arrangements, which it will no longer be possible to transgress. The air traveler is not free. In the future, life's passengers will be even less so: they will travel through their lives fastened to their (corporate) seats.

It is right that what is just should be obeyed. It is necessary that what is strongest should be obeyed.

War means blind obedience, unthinking stupidity, brutish callousness, wanton destruction, and irresponsible murder.

In the weakness of one kind of authority, and in the fluctuation of all, the officers of an army will remain for some time mutinous and full of faction, until some popular general, who understands the art of conciliating the soldiery, and who possesses the true spirit of command, shall draw the eyes of all men upon himself. Armies will obey him on his personal account. There is no other way of securing military obedience in this state of things.

One great effect of prayer is that it enables the soul to command the body. By obedience I make my body submissive to my soul, but prayer puts my soul in command of my body.

Hence, in a state of nature, no man had any moral power to deprive another of his life, limbs, property, or liberty; nor the least authority to command or exact obedience from him, except that which arose from the ties of consanguinity.

The man of the true religious tradition understands two things: liberty and obedience. The first means knowing what you really want. The second means knowing what you really trust.