Obeyed Quotes & Sayings

The risk to be perceived defines the duty to be obeyed. — Benjamin Cardozo

I worked, long ago, in New York City, in construction, like many young men of the Mohawk Nation. I found that whites were often like us, and I could not hate them one at a time. But they do not know the earth or love it. They do not speak from the heart, usually. They do not act from the heart. They are more like the actors on the movie screen. They play roles. And their leaders are not like our leaders. They are not chosen for virtue, but for their skill at playing roles. Whites have told me this, in plain words. They do not trust their leaders, and yet they follow them. When we do not trust a leader, he is finished. Then, also, the leaders of the whites have too much power. It is bad for a man to be obeyed too often. But the worst thing is what I have said about the heart. Their leaders have lost it and they have lost mercy. They speak from somewhere else. They act from somewhere else. But from where? Like you, I do not know. It is, I think, a kind of insanity. — Robert Anton Wilson

How can one freeze and put their hands above their head at the same time? Do they teach cops to shout contradictory instructions at suspects at the academy for some sinister purpose? If I obeyed one cop, did the other cop get to shoot me for resisting arrest? — Kevin Hearne

The writer seems constrained, not by his own free will but by some powerful and unscrupulous tyrant who has him in thrall, to provide a plot, to provide comedy, tragedy, love interest, and an air of probability embalming the whole so impeccable that if all his figures were to come to life would find themselves dressed down to the last button of their coats in the fashion of the hour. The tyrant is obeyed; the novel is done to a turn. But sometimes, more and more often as time goes by, we suspect a momentary doubt, a spasm of rebellion, as pages fill themselves in the customary way. Is life like this? Must novels be like this? — Virginia Woolf

Propriety was a rigid master, but one that must be obeyed if one wanted to keep a sterling reputation. — Lawana Blackwell

Obey God in the things he shows you, and instantly the next thing is opened up. God will never reveal more truth about himself until you have obeyed what you know already ... this chapter brings out the delight of real friendship with God. — Oswald Chambers

To resume, in a few words, the system of the Imperial government, as it was instituted by Augustus, and maintained by those princes who understood their own interest and that of the people, it may be defined an absolute monarchy disguised by the forms of a commonwealth. The masters of the Roman world surrounded their throne with darkness, concealed their irresistible strength, and humbly professed themselves the accountable ministers of the senate, whose supreme decrees they dictated and obeyed. — Edward Gibbon

I'll leave you here to finish your, er ... conversation." As he withdrew from the room, however, it seemed that he couldn't keep from ducking his head back in and asking Marcus cryptically, "Once a week, did you say?"
"Close the door behind you," Marcus said icily, and Hunt obeyed with a smothered sound that sounded suspiciously like laughter. — Lisa Kleypas

In the summer of 2007, I was sitting in a studio in Dublin, debating with a lay spokesman of the Roman Catholic Church who turned out to be the only believing Christian on a discussion panel of five people. He was a perfectly nice and rather modest logic-chopping polemicist, happy enough to go for a glass of refreshment after the program, and I suddenly felt a piercing stab of pity for him. A generation ago in Ireland, the Church did not have to lower itself in this way. It raised its voice only slightly, and was instantly obeyed by the Parliament, the schools, and the media. It could and did forbid divorce, contraception, the publication of certain books, and the utterance of certain opinions. Now it is discredited and in decline. Its once-absolute doctrines appear ridiculous: — Christopher Hitchens

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. The imagination must be given not wings but weights. — Henry Adams

Commanded by God dozens of times in the Hebrew Bible to remember their past, Jews historically obeyed not by recording events but by ritually re-enacting them: by understanding the present through the lens of the past. — Dara Horn

Just as man's physical existence was liberated when he grasped that 'nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed', so his consciousness will be liberated when grasps that nature, to be apprehended, must be obeyed - that the rules of cognition must be derived from the nature of existence and the nature, the identity, of his cognitive faculty. — Ayn Rand

I saw my parents as gods whose every wish must be obeyed or I would suffer the penalty of anguish and guilt. — Natalie Wood

And the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold the great image of authority: a dog's obeyed in office.
Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand.
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back.
Thou hotly lust'st to use her in that kind
For which thou whipp'st her. The usurer hangs the cozener.
Through tattered clothes great vices do appear;
Robes and furred gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks.
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it.
None does offend - none, I say, none. I'll able 'em.
Take that of me, my friend, who have the power
To seal th' accuser's lips. Get thee glass eyes,
And like a scurvy politician seem
To see the things thou dost not. — William Shakespeare

The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed. — James Hudson Taylor

That was the trouble of being old. Your body no longer obeyed you. It did unruly and unreasonable things. An eye suddenly might not see for a moment. Your knees gave out at the wrong time, so that when you thought you were walking north, you might find yourself going a little northwest. Your brain, too, had that same flighty trick. You might be speaking of something and forget it temporarily, - your mind going off at a little to the northwest, too, so to speak. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

He (Mohammed) seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh urges us. His teaching also contained precepts that were in conformity with his promises, and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure. In all this, as is not unexpected; he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proofs of the truth of his doctrine, he brought forward only such as could be grasped by the natural ability of anyone with a very modest wisdom. Indeed, the truths that he taught he mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity. — Thomas Aquinas

The passion for vengeance is a terrifyingly strong one, very easily and probably inevitably wrought up by such evidence [of atrocities], even at our distance. But however well aware I am of its strength, and that in its full immediate force and expression it is in some respects irrelevant to moral inquiry, I doubt that it is ever to be honored, or regarded as other than evil and in every direction fatally degrading and destructive; even when it is obeyed in hot blood or in a crisis of prevention; far worse when it is obeyed in cold blood and in the illusion of carrying out justice. — James Agee

If a general shows confidence in his men but always insists on his orders being obeyed, the gain will be mutual. — Sun Tzu

Take you my ring," he repeated, "and keep it with you." His tone was stubborn, and so I obeyed, sliding the great ring from his outstretched finger. The ring was cold, as his hands were cold, and I held it tenderly in my palm, blinking back the rising wetness of my eyes. "Remember that hawk, Mariana Farr," he told me gently, "and seek me not with your eyes, but with your soul. The soul sees what truly matters. — Susanna Kearsley

When they had dismounted, he indulged himself in a shudder of his whole body. "That is more than I undertake to do again!' --this to the admiral, in reproachful tones. "Those two monstrously large beasts! Going right up to them like that and dangling their captains in front of them just as if to say, look what I have got, ha ha! I am all astonishment they did not leap upon me at once. I hope they did not get a clear look at me. If they ever saw me again I am sure they would not let it pass."

"I beg you not to repine upon it," Laurence said. "Temeraire understands well that orders must be obeyed, and will not hold it against you; he knows it was not in your power to deliver us to him."

"Well, but it was," Souci said, not conciliated, and Granby said nothing reassuring at all. Iskierka allow of assurances of her behavior, good, evil, or otherwise. — Naomi Novik

If you believe in science, like I do, you believe that there are certain laws that are always obeyed. — Stephen Hawking

What is law? Is it what is on the books, or what is actually enacted and obeyed in a society? Or is law what must be enacted and obeyed, whether or not it is on the books, if things are to go right? — Bernhard Schlink

If, as the emperor Augustus says, from his time the coast of the ocean from Cadiz to the mouth of the Elbe obeyed the Romans, the obedience in this corner of it was far from voluntary and little to be trusted. — Theodor Mommsen

During the air war of 1944, a four-man combat crew on a B-17 bomber took a vow to never abandon one another no matter how desperate the situation. The aircraft was hit by flak during a mission and went into a terminal dive, and the pilot ordered everyone to bail out. The top turret gunner obeyed the order, but the ball turret gunner discovered that a piece of flak had jammed his turret and he could not get out. The other three men in his pact could have bailed out with the parachutes, but they stayed with him until the plan hit the ground and exploded. They all died. — Sebastian Junger

She's the princess. She commanded and I obeyed!"-Loki
"You don't obey a suicide mission!"-Finn — Amanda Hocking

There be as many persons of a king, as there be petty constables in his kingdom. And so there are, or else he cannot be obeyed. But I never said that a king, and every one of his persons, are the same substance. — Thomas Hobbes

With the funeral to be arranged, and the club's business in disarray, and the building itself in dire need of restoration, Sebastian should have been far too busy to take notice of Evie and her condition. However, she soon realized that he was demanding frequent reports from the housemaids about how much she had slept, and whether she had eaten, and her activities in general. Upon learning that Evie had gone without breakfast or lunch, Sebastian had a supper tray sent upstairs, accompanied by a terse note.
My lady,
This tray will be returned for my inspection within the hour. If everything on it is not eaten, I will personally force-feed it to you.
Bon appetit,
S.
To Sebastian's satisfaction, Evie obeyed the edict. She wondered with annoyance if his orders were motivated by concern or by a desire to browbeat her. — Lisa Kleypas

In its narrowest acceptation, order means obedience. A government is said to preserve order if it succeeds in getting itself obeyed. — John Stuart Mill

It occurred to Raule that all children were monsters in the world and were instinctively aware of it. They were reminded of their anomalous nature by adults, whom they failed to resemble, and with whose habitations and tools their bodies were at odds. This was surely why the little girl played with the sequins so solemnly and with such intense concentration. She was doing nothing less than conjuring, out of pattern and colour, a world that conformed to her desires and obeyed her will. The boy, on the other hand, showed with the whole attitude of his being that he knew there was only the one world and he would kill it if he could. — K.J. Bishop

I can see ye're in a mood to be bossy. I suppose since ye're a laird ye must be used to giving orders and having them obeyed. I'll oblige ye this once, but in future, I will continue to question ye. — Eliza Knight

She who must be obeyed, by Horace Rumpole character — John Mortimer

Suppressed I Rise" is the true story of a courageous mother from South Africa and her two daughters. It started when Adeline, the granddaughter of missionaries from Germany, met and fell in love with a handsome young teacher, Richard Beck. They were married in the Cape Province of South Africa and would have been able to enjoy a normal life if it hadn't been for the dark clouds of World War II. Their first child Brigitte was born in Cape Town in 1936, just as Germany was ordering its citizens to return to Germany, the Vaterland. Richard Beck obeyed his country's call and returned to Mannheim bringing his family with him. — Hank Bracker

The lamb baa-ed vigorously as Mary dragged it into the manicure room, and Zel winced. She really should insist Julie come work, She could use the help, plus it would mean extra mother-daughter time
and, Zel thought wryly, I won't have to find a spare tower in the suburbs.
Closing the appointment book, Zel went to finish trimming Linda's hair. "Did I hear a sheep out there?" Linda asked.
"Sick dog," Zel said. "Now, bend your head down." Linda obeyed and Zel ran her fingers through the back of her hair to check for evenness. All she needed to do was think of a way to make Julie come without Julie immediately assuming her mother was trying to ruin her life. Not an easy task. — Sarah Beth Durst

Long usage had, for this Stubb, converted the jaws of death into an easy chair. What he thought of death itself, there is no telling. Whether he ever thought of it at all, might be a question; but, if he ever did chance to cast his mind that way after a comfortable dinner, no doubt, like a good sailor, he took it to be a sort of call of the watch to tumble aloft, and bestir themselves there, about something which he would find out when he obeyed the order, and not sooner. — Herman Melville

The principles on which we engaged, of which the charter of our independence is the record, were sanctioned by the laws of our being, and we but obeyed them in pursuing undeviatingly the course they called for. It issued finally in that inestimable state of freedom which alone can ensure to man the enjoyment of his equal rights. — Thomas Jefferson

Dieter had a theory that was pure Faust. Thought alone was valueless. You must act for thought to become effective. He used to say that the greatest mistake man ever made was to distinguish between the mind and the body: an order does not exist if it is not obeyed. — John Le Carre

Here's to our beloved George Washington, the Joshua of America, who commanded the sun and the moon to sand still
and they obeyed. — Benjamin Franklin

Some of us do not accept the Establishment myth that bad laws must be obeyed. — Tom Driberg

All that existed was precious in Crazy Horse's religion - whatever a man did or thought was good, was wakan, so long as he obeyed his own inner voice, for that too was wakan. — Stephen E. Ambrose

They obeyed, as wise men do when a woman puts her foot down ... — Terry Pratchett

The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments. — Ayn Rand

God does not demand that every man attain to what is theoretically highest and best. It is better to be a good street sweeper than a bad writer, better to be a good bartender than a bad doctor, and the repentant thief who died with Jesus on Calvary was far more perfect than the holy ones who had Him nailed to the cross. And yet, abstractly speaking, what is more holy than the priesthood and less holy than the state of a criminal? The dying thief had, perhaps, disobeyed the will of God in many things: but in the most important event of his life he listened and obeyed. The Pharisees had kept the law to the letter and had spent their lives in the pursuit of a most scrupulous perfection. But they were so intent upon perfection as an abstraction that when God manifested His will and His perfection in a concrete and definite way they had no choice but to reject it. — Thomas Merton

Society will be obeyed; if you refuse obedience, you must take the consequences. Society has only one law, and that is custom. Even religion itself is socially powerful only just so far as it has custom on its side. — Philip Gilbert Hamerton

Immoral laws are doubtless void, and should not be obeyed. — Wendell Phillips

Over the pope as expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority, there stands one's own conscience which must be obeyed before all else, even if necessary against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. — Pope Benedict XVI

If you have believed but not obeyed, you have postponed your Christian life. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

There is no higher "law" to be obeyed than the law of love. That, at the end of the day, is what it means to follow Jesus. — Peter Enns

Indeed,' he said, tapping his fingers very rapidly on the desk. 'Indeed. I'm very pleased to know you, sir. Do me the honour of sitting down.'
Blinking reproachfully at Fen, Cadogan obeyed, though as to what honour he could be doing Mr Rosseter in lowering his behind on to a leather chair he was not entirely clear. — Edmund Crispin

She asked herself a thousand times why she had hungered so desperately to belong body and soul to Joaquin Andieta when truth she had never been totally happy in his arms, and could explain it only in terms of first love. She had been ready to fall in love when he came to the house to unload some cargo; the rest was instinct. She had merely obeyed the most powerful and ancient of calls, but it had happened an eternity ago and seven thousand miles away. Who she was then and what she had seen in him she could not say, only that now her heart was far away from there. Not only was she tired of looking for him but deep down she did not want to find him; at the same time, though, she could not go on riddled with doubt. She needed an ending for that phase in order to begin a new love with a clean slate — Isabel Allende

What is sin? It is the glory of God not honored. The holiness of God not reverenced. The greatness of God not admired. The power of God not praised. The truth of God not sought. The wisdom of God not esteemed. The beauty of God not treasured. The goodness of God not savored. The faithfulness of God not trusted. The commandments of God not obeyed. The justice of God not respected. The wrath of God not feared. The grace of God not cherished. The presence of God not prized. The person of God not loved. That is sin. — John Piper

When have I rebelled?"
"When have you ever obeyed? — Shannon McDermott

We have then walked, played, or worked " enough," so we desist. That amount of fatigue is an efficacious obstruction on this side of which our usual life is cast. But if an unusual necessity forces us to press onward, a surprising thing occurs. The fatigue gets worse up to a certain critical point, when gradually or suddenly it passes away, and we are fresher than before. We have evidently tapped a level of new energy, masked until then by the fatigue-obstacle usually obeyed. — William James

Now, Bill, sit where you are," said the beggar. "If I can't see, I can hear a finger stirring. Business is business. Hold out your right hand. Boy, take his right hand by the wrist and bring it near my right."
We both obeyed him to the letter, and I saw him pass something from the hollow of the hand that held his stick into the palm of the captain's, which closed upon it instantly. — Robert Louis Stevenson

was coarse, exhausting, and largely a matter of faith - a farmer threw everything he had into the earth, but ultimately it wasn't up to him whether it rained or not. Sewing was different. Mabel knew if she was patient and meticulous, if she carefully followed the lines, took each step as it came, and obeyed the rules, that in the end when it was turned right-side out, it would be just how it was meant to be. A small miracle in — Eowyn Ivey

My bird can drive her break straight through your neck and into your artery in less time than it takes for you to draw a weapon, and she already dislikes you intensely. If I were you, I'd do my best not to antagonize her further."
"I thought the bird obeyed you."
"Better not antagonize me either. — C.J. Redwine

God celebrated the first marriage. Thus the institution has for its originator the Creator of the universe. "Marriage is honorable" (Hebrews 13:4); it was one of the first gifts of God to man, and it is one of the two institutions that, after the Fall, Adam brought with him beyond the gates of Paradise. When the divine principles are recognized and obeyed in this relation, marriage is a blessing; it guards the purity and happiness of the race, it provides for man's social needs, it elevates the physical, the intellectual, and the moral nature. — Ellen G. White

Given men warning of coming judgments. Those who had faith in His message for their time, and who acted out their faith, in obedience to His commandments, escaped the judgments that fell upon the disobedient and unbelieving. The word came to Noah, "Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before Me." Noah obeyed and was saved. The message came to Lot, "Up, get you out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city." Genesis 7:1; 19:14. Lot placed himself under the guardianship of the heavenly messengers, and was saved. So Christ's disciples were given warning of the destruction of Jerusalem. Those who watched for the sign of the coming ruin, and fled from the city, escaped the destruction. So now we are given warning of Christ's second coming and of the destruction to fall upon the world. Those who heed the warning will be saved. — Ellen G. White

At first, even if I obeyed instantly, I was still disciplined. I didn't understand and tried to react quicker, trying to anticipate what they wanted before I was disciplined again. I didn't realize it until later that I was being systematically broken and instilled with fear. I was being conditioned to serve with innately prompt obedience, without hesitation or question. I was learning what it was to be a mindless slave. — Johnny Stone

Shhh, don't say a word. If anyone hears, there'll be hell to pay. Just let me look at you. And so I obeyed. I stayed there, quiet and still, while Aspen stared into my eyes. — Kiera Cass

And indeed bad as his clothes were and coarsely as he spoke, he had none of the appearance of a man who sailed before the mast, but seemed like a mate or skipper accustomed to be obeyed or to strike. — Robert Louis Stevenson

I was a crazy young man who let himself be blinded by his passions and obeyed only the impulses of the moment. — Gustav Mahler

It is not doubted, and you know it, that Ireland and all those islands which have received the faith, belong to the Church of Rome; if you wish to enter that Island, to drive vice out of it, to cause law to be obeyed and St Peter's Pence to be paid by every house, it will please us to assign it to you. — Pope Adrian IV

There is a familiar play on the word "justification" that it means "just as if I'd never sinned." But there is another way of saying this that is even better
justification means "just as if I'd always obeyed." That's the way we stand before God: clothed in the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. And that's the way we can live with the discomfort of the justified life. — Jerry Bridges

Tolerance has come to mean that no one is right and no one is wrong and, indeed, the very act of stating that someone else's views are immoral or incorrect is now taken to be intolerant (of course, from this same point of view, it is all right to be intolerant of those who hold to objectively true moral or religious positions). Once the existence of knowable truth in religion and ethics is denied, authority (the right to be believed and obeyed) gives way to power (the ability to force compliance), reason gives way to rhetoric, the speech writer is replaced by the makeup man, and spirited but civil debate in the culture wars is replaced by politically correct special-interest groups who have nothing left but political coercion to enforce their views on others. — J.P. Moreland

Justified" is even better than "just as if I'd never sinned." It is also "just as if I'd always obeyed. — Jerry Bridges

Skinnider spent seven weeks in hospital and was incredulous that the leaders of the rising were executed. "We had obeyed all rules of war and surrendered as formally as any army ever capitulated. — Margaret Skinnider

The man who commands efficiently must have obeyed others in the past, and the man who obeys dutifully is worthy of someday being a commander. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Creator and Sustainer. Men are to make their own mistakes and successes. Each man is to work out his salvation (or damnation) in fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). Other men are to sit in judgment over him only when he commits public evil. They are not to command him as imitation gods. They are not to issue comprehensive commands and monitor him constantly. That is God's job, not man's. Thus, God's hierarchy produces social freedom. It relieves mankind from any pretended autonomy from God's total sovereignty. Men are not to seek to create predestinating hierarchies. They can leave their fellow men alone, so long as God's institutional laws are obeyed in public. — Gary North

There's an old play on the word justified: "just-as-if-I'd never sinned." But here's another way of saying it: "just-as-if-I'd always obeyed." Both are true. The first refers to the transfer of our moral debt to Christ so we're left with a "clean" ledger, just as if we'd never sinned. The second tells us our ledger is now filled with the perfect righteousness of Christ, so it's just as if we'd always obeyed. That's why we can come confidently into the very presence of God (Hebrews 4:16; 10:19) even though we're still sinners - saved sinners to be sure, but still practicing sinners every day in thought, word, deed, and motive. — Anonymous

Singapore is what your city could become if everyone obeyed the rules, did their jobs diligently, and just shut up. When your city gets to be this paragon of efficiency and discipline, would you still want to live there? Singapore is a model city, which is terrific if you happen to be a model human. — Jessica Zafra

What is the damnation of hell? To go with that society who have not obeyed His commands. — Joseph Smith Jr.

He'd tried so hard to fight his fear, but there was a something liberating about giving up the battle and recognizing his fear was part of him. It wasn't something to be exorcised. It wasn't something to be obeyed. It needed only to be acknowledged. — Marie Sexton

The ultimate good of the gospel is seeing and savoring the beauty and value of God. God's wrath and our sin obstruct that vision and that pleasure. You can't see and savor God as supremely satisfying while you are full of rebellion against Him and He is full of wrath against you. The removal of this wrath and this rebellion is what the gospel is for. The ultimate aim of the gospel is the display of God's glory and the removal of every obstacle to our seeing it and savoring it as our highest treasure. "Behold Your God!" is the most gracious command and the best gift of the gospel. If we do not see Him and savor Him as our greatest fortune, we have not obeyed or believed the gospel. — John Piper

Come here, baby sister," she whispered, and despite the terror twisting inside Levana's stomach, her feet obeyed. "I want to show you something. — Marissa Meyer

What is the city in which we sit here, but an aggregate of incongruous materials, which have obeyed the will of some man? — Ralph Waldo Emerson

For a while, O King, the gods had sought to solve the riddles of Time, for a while They made him Their slave, and Time smiled and obeyed his masters, for a while, O King, for a while. He that hath spared nothing hath not spared the gods, nor yet shall he spare thee. — Lord Dunsany

He stopped and looked at her. "Your eyes are leaking."
"It's the flowers. They make me sneeze."
"Then let us be away from the garden. Open the door, love, if you will."
She obeyed, then froze halfway over the threshold. "What did you call me?"
"The first of countless endearments if you'll but stir yourself to hold our current course. — Lynn Kurland

The startling thing about her simplifying instinct was that the more she did away with fashion in search for comfort and the more she passed over conventions as she obeyed spontaneity, the more disturbing her incredible beauty became and the more provocative she become to men. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Many people believe that the free market, despite some admitted advantages, is a picture of disorder and chaos. Nothing is "planned," everything is haphazard. Government dictation, on the other hand, seems simple and orderly; decrees are handed down and they are obeyed. — Murray N. Rothbard

The word Ilaah means something that deserves to be worshiped AND obeyed at the same time. It is not enough to worship Allah through rituals. We have to give His obedience precedence over our desires in every situation of our life. — Nouman Ali Khan

Awaken your heart to kindness and mercy for the people and love and tenderness for them. Never, never act with them like a predatory beast which seeks to be satiated by devouring them, for the people fall into two categories: they are either your brethren in faith or your kindred in creation ... Do not ever say, 'I have been given authority' or 'My command should be obeyed.' Because it corrupts the heart, consumes one's faith, and invites calamities. — Ali Ibn Abi Talib

Come here, he said. Rebeca obeyed. She stopped beside the hammock in an icy sweat, feeling knots forming in her intestines, while Jose Arcadio stroked her ankle with the tips of his fingers, then her calves, then her thighs, murmuring: Oh, little sister, little sister. She had to make a supernatural effort not to die when a startlingly regulated cyclonic power lifted her up by the waist and despoiled her of her intimacy with 3 slashes of its claws and quartered her like a little bird. She managed to thank God for having been born before she lost herself in the inconcievable pleasure of that unbearable pain ... — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

When one person got involved, it took everybody else along. I went to jail first, but my entire family soon joined the Movement. One time, Faith & I ended up at home w all the babies from 2 households, because the mamas & the other older sisters were in jail. In the morning we had to plait everybody's hair & feed them--it was a mess! We had all the babies except Peaches Gaines, who was in jail with her mother & my mother. Peaches was jailed because she had not obeyed an officer. She was about 2. Her bond was set at, I believe, $125.00. --Joann Christian Mants — Faith S. Holsaert

I'm a simple village girl who has always obeyed the orders of my father and brothers. Since forever, I have learned to say yes to everything. Today I have decided to say no. — Nujood Ali

As much as it was like anything, magic was like a language. And like a language, textbooks and teachers treated it as an orderly system for the purposes of teaching it, but in reality it was complex and chaotic and organic. It obeyed rules only to the extent that it felt like it, and there were almost as many special cases and one-time variations as there were rules. These Exceptions were indicated by rows of asterisks and daggers and other more obscure typographical fauna which invited the reader to peruse the many footnotes that cluttered up the margins of magical reference books like Talmudic commentary. — Lev Grossman

Don't complain. The Israelites wasted forty years murmuring and complaining in the wilderness, when they could have just obeyed God and entered into their Promised Land. — Joyce Meyer

The modern preacher who devotes his energies to church administration, to counseling, and to preaching sermons to people, most of whom have already obeyed the Gospel, has no close parallel in the church of the first century. — Jack P. Lewis

For over twenty-five centuries we've been bearing the weight of superb and heterogeneous civilizations, all from outside, none made by ourselves, none that we could call our own.

This violence of landscape, this cruelty of climate, this continual tension in everything, and even these monuments of the past, magnificent yet incomprehensible because not built by us and yet standing round us like lovely mute ghosts; all those rulers who landed by main force from every direction who were at once obeyed, soon detested, and always misunderstood, their only expressions works of art we couldn't understand and taxes which we understood only too well and which they spent elsewhere: all these things have formed our character, which is thus conditioned by events outside our control as well as by a terrifying insularity of mind. — Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa

By all men bond to Nothing, Being slaves without a lord, By one blind idiot world obeyed, Too blind to be abhorred. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

The risk to be percieved defines the duty to be obeyed. — Benjamin Cardozo

That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; GEN22.18 And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice. GEN22.19 So Abraham returned unto his young men, and they rose up and went together to Beersheba; and Abraham dwelt at Beersheba. GEN22.20 And it came to pass after these things, that it was told Abraham, saying, Behold, Milcah, she hath also born children unto thy brother Nahor; — Anonymous

I like to be in control. I like to call the shots. I like to be obeyed unconditionally. And almost all of the girls who make it beyond the first appointment do that, and do it well. — J.A. Huss

An Atheist is a person who questions every kind of authority, and this is the thing that is important. Because if we can, without blinking an eye, question the ultimate authority, god - who must be obeyed, then we can question the authority of the state, we can question the authority of a university structure, we can question the authority of our employer, we can question anything. So I think the primary thing that an Atheist is, is a person who looks at an authoritarian idea, or an authority structure, and says to that authority structure: from whence do you derive your authority and why should I be obedient to you? It appears to me that if I have human intelligence that this is enough for me to try to challenge whatever you're doing. — Madalyn Murray O'Hair

We might do well to stay home a few days and walk over the fields, or to stand in the shelter of the barn door and reflect upon the relentless and yet benevolent forces of Mother Nature. The laws of nature are relentless. They can never be disobeyed without exacting a penalty. Yet they are benevolent, for when they are understood and obeyed, nature yields up the abundance that blesses those who understand and obey. — Wheeler McMillen

War Is A Racket : I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all members of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher- ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service — Smedley Butler

The woman does not work because the man tells her to work and she obeys. On the contrary, the woman works because she has told the man to work and he hasn't obeyed. — G.K. Chesterton

You're not . . . normal, Clara. You try to pretend you are. But you're not. You talked to a grizzly bear, and it obeyed you. Birds follow you like a Disney cartoon, or haven't you noticed? And for a while after you came back from Idaho Falls, Wendy thought you were on the run from someone or something. You're good at everything you try. You ride a horse like you were born in the saddle, you ski perfect parallel turns your first time on the hill, you apparently speak fluent French and Korean and who knows what else. Yesterday I noticed that your eyebrows kind of glitter in the sun. And there's something about the way you move, something that's beyond graceful, something that's beyond human, even. It's like you're . . . something else. — Cynthia Hand

If you command wisely, you'll be obeyed cheerfully. — Thomas Fuller

She sits on the iron throne
She is one and three
The dark lady
the redgold lady
The blank lady
oracle
of blood, she who must be
obeyed
forever
Her glass wings are gone
She floats down the river
singing her last song — Margaret Atwood