Quotes & Sayings About Discipline In The Army

I didn't like Army life. I didn't like taking orders. I didn't like discipline. I didn't like being yelled at. You'd get 10 years for punching a sergeant so I couldn't punch a sergeant. — Jack Kirby

Discipline is the soul of an army. — George Washington

In your deliberations, when seeking to determine the military conditions, let them be made the basis of a comparison, in this wise: which of the two generals has the most ability? on which side is Discipline most rigorously enforced? which army is stronger? on which side are the officers and men more highly trained? in which army is there the greater constancy both in reward and punishment? — Sun Tzu

Without self-discipline, a noncommissioned officer can never develop or maintain personal integrity. — Silas L. Copeland

42. If soldiers are punished before they have grown attached to you, they will not prove submissive; and, unless submissive, then will be practically useless.
If, when the soldiers have become attached to you, punishments are not enforced, they will still be useless.
43. Therefore soldiers must be treated in the first instance with humanity, but kept under control by means of iron discipline. This is a certain road to victory.
44. If in training soldiers commands are habitually enforced, the army will be well-disciplined; if not, its discipline will be bad. — Sun Tzu

An army of disciplined sheep is better than an army of undisciplined wolves. — Matshona Dhliwayo

It's simple: either you have discipline or you haven't. — Edmund H. North

No army which concerns itself with politics is ever of any value. Its discipline is poor, its morale is rotten and its reliability and efficiency is [sic] bound to be of the lowest order. You only have to look at certain foreign armies which are constantly mixed up in politics to realize the truth of what I have to say.1 - Sir Roy Bucher — Tilak Devasher

An army without discipline is worse than an army without soldiers. — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Dell had left the army and taken the discipline home with him. I'd left the theatre world and taken the whisky sodas home with me. — Mark Capell

Our people are not calculated to be confined in garrisons or kept in any particular service; they soon grow troublesome and uneasy by reflecting on their folly in bringing themselves into a state of subjection when they might have continued free and independent'. This was a society unlike any in the world, in which people placed great value on their status as independent individuals, beholden to no man. They were suspicious of standing armies and impatient of discipline, and while they realized the need to resist the enemy, they preferred to do so on their own terms at a time and place of their own choosing. It did not make for the kind of army on which generals could pin great hopes. — Richard M. Ketchum

You don't want captains in the army who know too much or think too much. — Robert Graves

Gentlemen," I said to my officers, "let's talk about discipline within our army, and let's consider our danger from no-account leaders. Unfortunately, such rogues sometimes find more followers than good leaders. Promising everyone a good time with plenty of instant rewards, these scoundrels can exert much more influence than virtuous men, who end up alone on steep, rocky paths. — Xenophon

But in almost every province of the Roman world, an army of fanatics, without authority and without discipline, invaded the peaceful inhabitants; and the ruin of the fairest structures of antiquity still displays the ravages of those barbarians who alone had time and inclination to execute such laborious destruction. — Edward Gibbon

It was us they were talking about, with the objectivity of businessmen completing a routine transaction. In Barrett there wasn't even the hint of remorse or conscience. Some folks, they say, are born incapable of those things. Often they behave beyond suspicion, those sick people, until it's too late. Sometimes they're good-looking, charming, intelligent. Maybe they liked to pull the wings off flies more than other kids. But boys will be boys. If they served in the Army they made lousy soldiers, complaining and griping all the time about discipline, until they got a taste of combat. They often won medals, then, and were afraid but didn't go stiff and inadequate with fear like some of their buddies. They felt above the crowd. They were arrogant. Laws didn't apply to them. They could kill you with an absolute lack of concern if it suited them. They were called psychopathic personalities, P.P.'s, and Barrett was one of them.

It looked as if we were going to die. — Stephen Marlowe

They were uncertain, resentful, and somewhat ill at ease. This they hid by pretending an elaborate relief at being out of the army, and by assuring each other that military discipline should never again rule their stubborn, liberty-loving wills. Yet, as a matter of fact, they would have felt more at home in a prison than in this newfound and unquestionable freedom. — F Scott Fitzgerald

It is tragic that the Fuehrer should have the whole nation behind him with the single exception of the Army generals. In my opinion it is only by action that they can now atone for their faults of lack of character and discipline. — Alfred Jodl

The only way to form an army to be confided in, was a systematic discipline, by which means all men may be made heroes. — John Adams

With regard to military discipline, I may safely say that no such thing existed in the Continental Army. — Friedrich Wilhelm Von Steuben

Good order and discipline in any army are to be depended upon more than courage alone. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Sharpe had no thought of deserting now, for now he was about to fight. If there was any one good reason to join the army, it was to fight. Not to hurry up and do nothing, but to fight the King's enemies, and this enemy had been shocked by the awful violence of the close-range volley and now they stared in horror as the redcoats screamed and ran towards them. The 33rd, released from the tight discipline of the ranks, charged eagerly. There was loot ahead. Loot and food and stunned men to slaughter and there were few men in the 33rd who did not like a good fight. Not many had joined the ranks out of patriotism; instead, like Sharpe, they had taken the King's shilling because hunger or desperation had forced them into uniform, but they were still good soldiers. They came from the gutters of Britain where a man survived by savagery rather than by cleverness. They were brawlers and bastards, alley-fighters with nothing to lose but tuppence a day. — Bernard Cornwell

The Irish recruits who poured into the army in 1846 were already accustomed to the realities of antebellum American nativism. The country had been rocked by anti-Catholic riots even before the famine produced new waves of Irish immigrants; in Boston, Protestant mobs had burned a convent in 1834, and Philadelphia had seen mob attacks on Irishmen ten years later. So the recent immigrants who enlisted for war with Mexico weren't surprised to encounter nativists in the army. They were very much surprised, though, by the intensity of the anti-Irish sentiment they faced from their officers - a social sentiment that was expressed through official discipline. — Chris Bray

Why Menon got where he did under the patronage of Pandit Nehru remains, and probably will remain, unexplained. Panditji had him elected to Parliament and sent to the United Nations to lead the Indian delegation. His marathon thirteen-hour speech on Kashmir won India a unanimous vote against it. He was then made Defence Minister against the wishes of almost all the members of the Cabinet. He wrecked army discipline by promoting favourites over the heads of senior officers. He was vindictive against those who stood up to him. More than anyone else he was responsible for the humiliating defeat of our army at the hands of the Chinese in 1962. Pandit Nehru stuck by him to the last. — Khushwant Singh

The core of a soldier is moral discipline. It is intertwined with the discipline of physical and mental achievement. It motivates doing on your own what is right without prodding. It is an inner critic that refuses to tolerate less than your best. Total discipline overcomes adversity and physical stamina draws on an inner strength that says "drive on". — William G. Bainbridge

One-year enlistment had proven problematic since the troops were scheduled to rotate out of the army just when they had begun to internalize the discipline of military service and became reliable soldiers. — Joseph J. Ellis

Dad was in the British Army and my mom was in the Royal Air Force, so both of my parents believed in discipline. — Mike Myers

An army formed of good officers moves like clockwork; but there is no situation upon earth less enviable, nor more distressing, than that person's who is at the head of troops which are regardless of order and discipline. — George Washington

But what is war? What is needed for success in warfare? What are the habits of the military? The aim of war is murder; the methods of war are spying, treachery, and their encouragement, the ruin of a country's inhabitants, robbing them or stealing to provision the army, and fraud and falsehood termed military craft. The habits of the military class are the absence of freedom, that is, discipline, idleness, ignorance, cruelty, debauchery, and drunkenness. And in spite of all this it is the highest class, respected by everyone. All the kings, except the Chinese, wear military uniforms, and he who kills most people receives the highest rewards. — Leo Tolstoy

The characteristic feature of militarism is not the fact that a nation has a powerful army or navy. It is the paramount role assigned to the army within the political structure. Even in peacetime the army is supreme; it is the predominant factor in political life. The subjects must obey the government as soldiers must obey their superiors. Within a militarist community there is no freedom; there are only obedience and discipline. — Ludwig Von Mises

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. — George Washington

The popular masses are like water, and the army is like a fish. How then can it be said that when there is water, a fish will have difficulty in preserving its existence? An army which fails to maintain good discipline gets into opposition with the popular masses, and thus by its own action dries up the water. — Mao Zedong

One doesn't become a soldier in a week - it takes training, study and discipline. There is no question that the finest Army in the world is found in the United States. — Daniel Inouye

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

We are fighting the greatest battle of all time with the most untrained army on earth. If strict discipline is necessary in art and athletics, how can we expect to be advanced Christians and stay in kindergarten? — Vance Havner

The army influences everything I do. Certainly it teaches you discipline, which is a necessary element of development. I think there's more of a collaborative understanding in the band because of that. — Maynard James Keenan

This army is powerful because all its members have a conscious discipline; they have come together and they fight not for the private interests of a few individuals or a narrow clique, but for the interests of the broad masses and of the whole nation. The sole purpose of this army is to stand firmly with the Chinese people and to serve them whole-heartedly. — Mao Zedong

Orderly discipline and morale within an army was the responsibility of the Division Commander. — Iwane Matsui

By method and discipline are to be understood the marshaling of the army in its proper subdivisions, the graduations of rank among the officers, the maintenance of roads by which supplies may reach the army, and the control of military expenditure. — Sun Tzu

The exemplary vanguard role of the Communists is of vital importance. Communists in the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies should set an example in fighting bravely, carrying out orders, observing discipline, doing political work and fostering internal unity and solidarity. — Mao Zedong

The strength of an Army lies in strict discipline and undeviating obedience to its officers. — Thucydides

One can build the Empire State Building, discipline the Prussian army, make a state hierarchy mightier than God, yet fail to overcome the unaccountable superiority of certain human biengs. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

This truth may be unfashionable, unpalatable, no doubt unpopular, but, if it is the truth, the story of mankind shows that war was universal and unceasing for millions of years before armaments were invented or armies organized. Indeed, the lucid intervals of peace and order only occurred in human history after armaments in the hands of strong governments have come into being, and civilization in every age has been nursed only in cradles guarded by superior weapons and superior discipline. — Winston Churchill

The military offered the opportunity to see the world, and meet other people and learn new customs. Plus, the Army taught soldiers discipline. The life I experienced in the service was an education I could never have obtained as a cowboy. — Tom Johnson