Obedience Quotes

“Every now and then I like to do as I'm told, just to confuse people.”
― Tamora Pierce, Melting Stones

“To have Faith in Christ means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“I don't do what I'm told, but I might do what you want if you ask me nicely.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes

“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people following the rules. It's people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages.”
― Banksy, Wall and Piece

“He who joyfully marches to music rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”
― Albert Einstein

“A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.”
― Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth

“Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady. I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there. And I also hope that you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women."

[Commencement Address, Wellesley College, 1996]”
― Nora Ephron

“Does it make sense to pray for guidance about the future if we are not obeying in the thing that lies before us today? How many momentous events in Scripture depended on one person's seemingly small act of obedience! Rest assured: Do what God tells you to do now, and, depend upon it, you will be shown what to do next.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, Quest for Love: True Stories of Passion and Purity

“God is God. Because he is God, He is worthy of my trust and obedience. I will find rest nowhere but in His holy will that is unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what he is up to.”
― Elisabeth Elliot

“You are evidence of your mother's strength, especially if you are a rebellious knucklehead and regardless she has always maintained her sanity.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.”
― Stanley Milgram

“Choices will continually be necessary and -- let us not forget -- possible. Obedience to God is always possible. It is a deadly error to fall into the notion that when feelings are extremely strong we can do nothing but act on them.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, Discipline: The Glad Surrender

“Everyone would like to have stronger faith. By themselves, the scriptures may not strengthen your faith, but being faithful to what they teach, does. In other words, faith cannot be separated from faithfulness.”
― John Bytheway, When Times Are Tough: 5 Scriptures That Will Help You Get Through Almost Anything

“The common man prays, 'I want a cookie right now!' And God responds, 'If you'd listen to what I say, tomorrow it will bring you 100 cookies.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.”
― Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority

“The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birthgiver. In a very real sense the artist (male or female) should be like Mary who, when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command.

...I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius, or something very small, comes to the artist and says, "Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me." And the artist either says, "My soul doth magnify the Lord," and willingly becomes the bearer of the work, or refuses; but the obedient response is not necessarily a conscious one, and not everyone has the humble, courageous obedience of Mary.

As for Mary, she was little more than a child when the angel came to her; she had not lost her child's creative acceptance of the realities moving on the other side of the everyday world. We lose our ability to see angels as we grow older, and that is a tragic loss.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

“God favors men and women who delight in being made worthy of happiness before the happiness itself.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Smee, you are a supreme idjit."
"Aye, Cap'n.”
― Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

“You will know as much of God, and only as much of God, as you are willing to put into practice.”
― Eric Liddell, Disciplines of Christian Life

“Together we shared a bond not even death would violate.”
― Dee Remy, There Once Was A Boy

“The essence in obedience consists in the fact that a person comes to view himself as an instrument for carrying out another person's wishes and he therefore no longer regards himself as responsible for his actions.”
― Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority

“Majority decisions tend to be made without engaging the systematic thought and critical thinking skills of the individuals in the group. Given the force of the group's normative power to shape the opinions of the followers who conform without thinking things through, they are often taken at face value. The persistent minority forces the others to process the relevant information more mindfully. Research shows that the deciscions of a group as a whole are more thoughtful and creative when there is minority dissent than when it is absent.”
― Philip G. Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil

“If you wish to abrogate all responsibility for your moral and intellectual independence, then by all means - conform with the herd and obey blindly.”
― Graeme Rodaughan, The Crane War

“Obeying orders just to obey is the mark of a person who has ceased to think. Remember, it is better to suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong.”
― Ilsa J. Bick, Ashes

“If we cooperate with Him in loving obedience, God will manifest Himself to us, and that manifestation will be the difference between a nominal Christian life and a life radiant with the light of His face.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

“And have your mother put my head on a stake? Do you have any notion what that would do to my handsome good looks?”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“Father has a strengthening character like the sun and mother has a soothing temper like the moon.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“The unteachable man is sentenced to being taught only by experience. The tragedy is he reaches nothing further than his own pain.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Faith, in its most correct form, never removes responsibility; it removes fear of responsibility. The results are complete opposites with the greater saying, 'God's will is my delight.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy