Civil Obedience Quotes & Sayings

Before civil disobedience can be practised on a vast scale, people must learn the art of civil or voluntary obedience. — Mahatma Gandhi

Our inability to relate to one another is very, very, very important. When we don't have it, we get situations like Bosnia. — Edward James Olmos

The Limit of this obligation to obedience [to the civil government] will be found only when we are commanded to do something contrary to the to the superior authority of God (Acts iv. 19; v. 29); or when the civil government has become so radically and incurably corrupt that it has ceased to accomplish the ends for which it was established. When that point has unquestionably been reached, when all means of redress have been exhausted without avail, when there appears no prospect of securing reform in the government itself, and some good prospect of securing it by revolution, then it is the privilege and duty of a Christian people to change their government - peacefully if they may, forcibly if they must. — Archibald Alexander Hodge

If patriotism were defined, not as blind obedience to government, not as submissive worship to flags and anthems, but rather as love of one's country, one's fellow citizens (all over the world), as loyalty to the principles of justice and democracy, then patriotism would require us to disobey our government, when it violated those principles. — Howard Zinn

Civil disobedience presupposes willing obedience of our self-imposed rules, and without it civil disobedience would be a cruel joke. — Mahatma Gandhi

The problem in this world is not civil disobedience ... th e problem in this world is civil obedience. — Howard Zinn

The newly created Darth Vader flexes his Force-muscle as the Emperor's enforcer to maintain order and obedience in a galaxy reeling from civil war and the destruction of the Jedi Order. To the galaxy at large, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker - the Chosen One - died on Coruscant during the siege of the Jedi Temple. And, to some extent, the was true - Anakin was dead. But from the site of Anakin Skywalker's last stand - on the molten surface of the planet Mustafa, where he sought to destroy his friend and former master, Obi-Wan Kanobi - a fearsome spectre in black has risen. Once the most powerful Knight ever known to the Jedi order he is not a disciple of the dark side, a lord of the dreaded Sith, and the avenging right hand of the galaxy's ruthless new Emperor. Seduced, deranged and destroyed by the machinations of the Dark Lord Sidious, Anakin Skywalker is dead ... and Darth Vader lives ... — James Luceno

Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders ... and millions have been killed because of this obedience ... Our problem is that people are obedient allover the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves ... (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem. — Howard Zinn

Through Khadi we teach the people the art of civil obedience to an institution which they have built up for themselves. — Mahatma Gandhi

I'm sure everyone knows that my heart is and always will be with the players, the fans and the entire Dodger family. I've cared about the Dodgers for nearly my entire life, and nothing can change my allegiance to this franchise. — Steve Garvey

The Charkha, which is the embodiment of willing obedience and calm persistence, must therefore succeed before there is civil disobedience. — Mahatma Gandhi

The doctrine of blind obedience and unqualified submission to any human power, whether civil or ecclesiastical, is the doctrine of despotism, and ought to have no place among Republicans and Christians. — Angelina Grimke

Civil disobedience, as I put it to the audience, was not the problem, despite the warnings of some that it threatened social stability, that it led to anarchy. The greatest danger, I argued, was civil obedience, the submission of individual conscience to governmental authority. Such obedience led to the horrors we saw in totalitarian states, and in liberal states it led to the public's acceptance of war whenever the so-called democratic government decided on it ...
In such a world, the rule of law maintains things as they are. Therefore, to begin the process of change, to stop a war, to establish justice, it may be necessary to break the law, to commit acts of civil disobedience, as Southern black did, as antiwar protesters did. — Howard Zinn

I do not know the meaning of the universe. But in the midst of doubt, in the collapse of creed, there is one thing I do not doubt and that is that the faith is true and adorable which leads a soldier to throw away his life in obedience to a blindly accepted duty, in a cause which he little understands, in a plan or campaign of which he has no notion, under tactics of which he does not see the use. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

plot is how the dramatic events (action) in a story change and/or transform the main character (emotion) over time in a meaningful way (theme). — Martha Alderson

I'm not going to give the same energy. I am going to give more of myself. If everyone thinks like that, it's going to be something incredible. — Hanley Ramirez

Every nation-state tends towards the imperial - that is the point. Through banks, armies, secret police, propaganda, courts and jails, treaties, taxes, laws and orders, myths of civil obedience, assumptions of civic virtue at the top. — Daniel Berrigan

We know too much, and are convinced of too little. Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion. — T. S. Eliot

Christianity does not oppose debauchery and uncontrollable passions and the like as much as it opposes ... flat mediocrity, this nauseating atmosphere, this homey, civil togetherness, where admittedly great crimes, wild excesses, and powerful aberrations cannot easily occur - but where God's unconditional demand has even greater difficulty in accomplishing what it requires: the majestic obedience of submission. — Soren Kierkegaard

Finally, Lutheran and Reformed traditions distinguish (without separating) three uses of the law: the first (pedagogical), to expose our guilt and corruption, driving us to Christ; the second, a civil use to restrain public vice; and the third, to guide Christian obedience. Believers are not "under the law" in the first sense. They are justified. However, they are still obligated to the law, both as it is stipulated and enforced by the state (second use) and as it frames Christian discipleship (third use). We never ground our status before God in our obedience to imperatives, but in Christ's righteousness; yet we are also bound to Christ, who continues to lead and direct us by his holy will. — Michael S. Horton

I think that what I was talking about was that as a woman growing up in a Mormon tradition in Salt Lake City, Utah, we were taught - and we are still led to believe - that the most important value is obedience. But that obedience in the name of religion or patriotism ultimately takes our souls. So I think it's this larger issue of what is acceptable and what is not; where do we maintain obedience and law and where do we engage in civil disobedience - where we can cross the line physically and metaphorically and say, "No, this is no longer appropriate behavior." — Terry Tempest Williams

You wanna do some livin' before you die. Do it down in New Orleans ... — Dr. John

If you can attain repose and calm, believe that you have seized happiness. — Jeanne Julie Eleonore De Lespinasse

I want my life to mean something! — Marliss Melton

The role of any person in this world is to be themselves without damaging the rest. We are important as long as the rest "is". - Rossana Condoleo — Rossana Condoleo

Immediate gratification of a live audience makes me come alive. I miss performing in theater. I'll make my return to the stage eventually. — Brendan Dooling

I have a huge ego and a huge inferiority complex at the same time. — Barry Gibb

Any single man must judge for himself whether circumstances warrant obedience or resistance to the commands of the civil magistrate; we are all qualified, entitled, and morally obliged to evaluate the conduct of our rulers. This political judgment, moreover, is not simply or primarily a right, but like self-preservation, a duty to God. As such it is a judgment that men cannot part with according to the God of Nature. It is the first and foremost of our inalienable rights without which we can preserve no other. — John Locke

I like that Ben & Jerry's is willing to speak out about social and political issues that aren't always safe - but are the right thing to do. — Jerry Greenfield

Our problem is civil obedience — Matt Damon