Inspirational Quotes on Discipline

“Not every affection which seems good is to be immediately followed. Neither is every opposite affection to be immediately avoided. Sometimes it is expedient to use restraint even in good desires and wishes, lest through importunity you fall into distraction of mind, lest through want of discipline you become a stumbling block to others.”

“Our superintendence in instruction and discipline is the office of the Word, from whom we learn frugality and humility, and all that pertains to love of truth, love of humanity, and love of excellence. And so, in a word, being assimilated to God by participation in moral excellence, we must not retrograde into carelessness and sloth. But labor, and faint not.”

“But man now behaves like the Pharisees and insists that he is made for all the things—science, industry, nation, money, religion, schools—which were really made for him. Why? Because he is so little aware of his own interests as a human being that he feels irresistibly tempted to sacrifice himself to these idols. There is no remedy except to become aware of one's interests as a human being, and, having become aware, to learn to act on that awareness. Which means learning to use the self and learning to direct the mind. It's almost wearisome, the way one always comes back to the same point. Wouldn't it be nice, for a change, if there were another way out of our difficulties! A short cut. A method requiring no greater personal effort than recording a vote or ordering some 'enemy of society' to be shot. A salvation from outside, like a dose of calomel.”

“The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda. "The only adequate preparation for tomorrow is the right use of today.”

“He who had known the ceaseless worship of angels came to be a slave to men. Preaching, teaching, healing the sick, and raising the dead were parts of his ministry, of course, and the parts we might consider ourselves willing to do for God if that is what He asked. He could be seen to be God in those. But Jesus also walked miles in dusty heat. He healed, and people forgot to thank Him. He was pressed and harried by mobs of exigent people, got tired and hungry, was "tailed" and watched and pounced upon by suspicious, jealous, self-righteous religious leaders, and in the end was flogged and spat on and stripped and had nails hammered through His hands. He relinquished the right (or the honour) of being publicly treated as equal with God.”

“To procrastinate obedience is to disobey God.”

“If I am to love the Lord my God with all my mind, there will not be room in it for carnality, for pride, for anxiety, for the love of myself. How can the mind be filled with the love of the Lord and have space left over for things like that?”

“Discipline without direction is drudgery.”

“Materialism wars against our souls in a twofold manner. First, it makes us discontent and envious of others. Second, it leads us to pamper and indulge our bodies so that we become soft and lazy. As we become soft and lazy in our bodies, we tend to become soft and lazy spiritually. When Paul talked about making his body his slave, so that after having preached to others he himself would not be disqualified, he was not thinking about physical disqualification, but spiritual. He knew well that physical softness inevitably leads to spiritual softness. When the body is pampered and indulged, the instincts and passions of the body tend to get the upper hand and dominate our thoughts and actions. We tend to do not what we should do, but what we want to do, as we follow the cravings of our sinful nature.”

“No matter how dear you are to God, if pride is harbored in your spirit, He will whip it out of you. They that go up in their own estimation must come down again by His discipline.”

“Nothing can be more hurtful to the service, than the neglect of discipline; for that discipline, more than numbers, gives one army the superiority over another.”

“Thou art beaten that thou mayest be better.”

“Teach us, O Lord, the disciplines of patience, for to wait is often harder than to work.”

“The believer alone will be able to hear the call. It comes from beyond ourselves, beyond our society, beyond the climate of opinion and prejudice and rebellion and skepticism in which we live, and beyond our time and taste. It draws toward the center of all things, that still place of which T.S. Eliot wrote : Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled About the centre of the silent Word.”

“Discipline is given to restrain the excesses of freedom”

“It hurts when God has to PRY things out of our hand!”

“Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.”

“Correct him, but not as a foe, nor as an adversary exacting a penalty, but as a physician providing medicines.”

“Threatening our children or employees is evidence of a lack of true authority. The rewards and penalties should already be clear, and if there is disobedience, discipline should be administered the first time, not further threatening. If we have to threaten to compel our children or anyone else that we are in charge of to obey us, then somehow it has already been established that our "yes" did not really mean "yes," and our "no" did not really mean "no."”

“The ways of the world exalt themselves against God. They sometimes look rational and appealing to the most ernest disciple but Christ says to us then what He said to His disciples long ago, when many of them had given u pin disgust, "Do you also want to leave me?" If we answer as PEter did, "Lord to whom else shall we go? Your words are words of eternal life," our rebel thoughts are captured once more. The way of holiness is again visible.”