Discipline quotes
1.8K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
"When children attend schools that place a greater value on discipline and security than on knowledge and intellectual development, they are attending prep schools for prison."
"Discipline yourself to do the things you need to do when you need to do them, and the day will come when you will be able to do the things you want to do when you want to do them!"
"With faith, discipline and selfless devotion to duty, there is nothing worthwhile that you cannot achieve."
"A man provided with paper, pencil, and rubber, and subject to strict discipline, is in effect a universal machine."
"The most precious of all possessions is power over ourselves."
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside discipline — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Goals on the road to achievement cannot be achieved without discipline and consistency."
"The discipline of suffering, of great suffering- do you not know that only this discipline has created all enhancements of man so far? That tension of the soul in unhappiness which cultivates its strength, its shudders face to face with great ruin, its inventiveness and courage in enduring, preserving, interpreting, and exploiting suffering, and whatever has been granted to it of profundity, secret, mask, spirit, cunning, greatness- was it not granted to it through suffering, through the discipline of great suffering?"
"I could only achieve success in my life through self-discipline, and I applied it until my wish and my will became one."
"There is little that can withstand a man who can conquer himself."
"In a world of noise, confusion and conflict it is necessary that there be places of silence, inner discipline and peace. In such places love can blossom."
"Just because I like sushi, doesn't mean I can make sushi. I've come to well understand how many years just to get sushi rice correct. It's a discipline that takes years and years and years. So, I leave that to the experts."
"Discipline is choosing between what you want now, and what you want most."
"Love isn't something natural. Rather it requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism. It isn't a feeling, it is a practice."
"Discipline divorced from wisdom is not true discipline, but merely the meaningless following of custom, which is only a disguise for stupidity."
"I like the idea of craziness with discipline."
"The real and effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence."
"Her father guarded her, and she guarded herself; for there are no padlocks, bolts, or bars, that secure a maiden better than her own reserve."
"He that cannot obey, cannot command."
"To me success would be to be able to do your very best in everything you do."
"Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate."
"The surest test of discipline is its absence."
"Only when you combine sound intellect with emotional discipline do you get rational behavior."
"In terms of instilling the values of mental toughness and work ethic, discipline is the gift that keeps on giving."
"Self-discipline, although difficult, and not always easy while combating negative emotions, should be a defensive measure. At least we will be able to prevent the advent of negative conduct dominated by negative emotion. That is 'shila', or moral ethics. Once we develop this by familiarizing ourselves with it, along with mindfulness and conscientiousness, eventually that pattern and way of life will become a part of our own life."
"For me, the martial arts is a search for something inside. It's not just a physical discipline."
