63 Inspiring Obedience Quotes

In a world where individualism and self-expression are often celebrated, the concept of obedience can sometimes be overlooked or misunderstood. Yet, the act of obedience holds profound value, serving as a cornerstone for discipline, harmony, and mutual respect in various facets of life. Whether it’s adhering to ethical principles, following spiritual teachings, or even simply listening to a mentor's guidance, obedience offers a path to personal growth and collective peace. Our carefully selected compilation of 63 inspiring obedience quotes is designed to ignite reflection and encourage an appreciation for the wisdom that obedience can bring. Join us as we delve into these quotes that illuminate the beauty and strength found in honoring rules, respecting leaders, and embracing the power of listening.

1. “Everyone would like to have stronger faith. By themselves, the scriptures may not strengthen your faith, but being faithful to what they teach, does. In other words, faith cannot be separated from faithfulness.” - John Bytheway

2. “To have Faith in Christ means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.” - C.S. Lewis

3. “The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.” - Stanley Milgram

4. “Fear is a strange soil. It grows obedience like corn, which grow in straight lines to make weeding easier. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground.” - Terry Pratchett

5. “Choices will continually be necessary and -- let us not forget -- possible. Obedience to God is always possible. It is a deadly error to fall into the notion that when feelings are extremely strong we can do nothing but act on them.” - Elisabeth Elliot

6. “Humility is a Divine property and the perfection of the Christian life. It is attained through obedience. He who is not obedient cannot gain humility. There are very few in the world today who have obedience. Our humility is in proportion to our obedience.” - Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

7. “The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people following the rules. It's people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages.” - Banksy

8. “Smee, you are a supreme idjit.""Aye, Cap'n.” - Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

9. “Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.” - Stanley Milgram

10. “Every now and then I like to do as I'm told, just to confuse people.” - Tamora Pierce

11. “What God says is best, is best, though all the men in the world are against it.” - John Bunyan

12. “I don't do what I'm told, but I might do what you want if you ask me nicely.” - Cassandra Clare

13. “Whenever Papa said, 'Jump,' I was always the first one in the air.” - Ann B. Ross

14. “It's only when we understand [Jesus'] presence in the church as being the fulfillment of God's promise in Zephaniah 3:17 to "quiet you with his love" and "rejoice over you with singing" that a crucial aspect of our salvation comes into perspective. Jesus didn't coldly settle accounts for us. He doesn't bark us into improving ourselves. He united us to himself in the glorious communion he has enjoyed for eternity with his heavenly Father. He resides within us to heal the broken places and refresh cauterized hearts. He sings us into a new mode of existence.... When, as Paul does, we imagine Jesus singing nations into submission to his rule, our hearts come joyfully under the sway of a love that is infinite and powerful.” - Reggie M. Kidd

15. “I think He made one law of that kind in order that there might be obedience. In all these other matters what you call obeying Him is but doing what seems good in your own eyes also. Is love content with that?” - C.S. Lewis

16. “Does it make sense to pray for guidance about the future if we are not obeying in the thing that lies before us today? How many momentous events in Scripture depended on one person's seemingly small act of obedience! Rest assured: Do what God tells you to do now, and, depend upon it, you will be shown what to do next.” - Elisabeth Elliot

17. “There is nothing that we are enduring that Jesus does not understand, and He waits for us to go to our Heavenly Father in prayer. If we will be obedient and if we are diligent, our prayers will be answered, our problems will diminish, our fears will dissipate, light will come upon us, the darkness of despair will be dispersed, and we will be close to the Lord.” - Robert D. Hales

18. “The reasonableness of the command to obey parents is clear to children, even when quite young.” - Noah Webster

19. “If you will pardon my saying so," Tharkay said, "you will never satisfy them on that point: the last thing you or Temeraire will ever give anyone is quiet obedience. Have you considered it might be better not to try?” - Naomi Novik

20. “The distance between your knowledge of truth and your obedience is called lack of integrity. And the amount of negative behavior--or lack of integrity--a person exhibits is directly proportional to their amount of pain." - Tara Leigh's therapist (p.118)” - Tara Leigh Cobble

21. “There are two kinds of discontented in this world, the discontented that works and the discontented that wrings its hands. The first gets what it wants and the second loses what it has. There is no cure for the first but success and there is no cure at all for the second. The very worst of my vices and bad habits will abate of themselves if they are brought to an accounting every day.” - Og Mandino

22. “Together we shared a bond not even death would violate.” - Dee Remy

23. “God favors men and women who delight in being made worthy of happiness before the happiness itself.” - Criss Jami

24. “You are evidence of your mother's strength, especially if you are a rebellious knucklehead and regardless she has always maintained her sanity.” - Criss Jami

25. “Faith, in its most correct form, never removes responsibility; it removes fear of responsibility. The results are complete opposites with the greater saying, 'God's will is my delight.” - Criss Jami

26. “The heroes of faith in Hebrews 11 ... obeyed by faith ... obedience is the pathway to holiness ... no one will become holy apart from a life of faith. Faith enables us to claim the promises of God, but it also enables us to obey the commands of God.” - Jerry Bridges

27. “We obey God's Law, not to be loved but because we are loved in Christ.” - Jerry Bridges

28. “I have always tried to be obedient regarding important matters like not being scalded to death by burning oil, but when public opinion takes a route far from one's inner conviction, one cannot value disobedience too highly.” - Barbara Dana

29. “Takamasa Saegusa: 'Seigen, a mere member of the Toudouza, had the effrontery to sully the sacred dueling ground. For that reason, our lord had already decided to subject him to tu-uchi before long. Cut off his head immediately, and stick it on a pike!'Gennosuke could hardly believe his ears. Such an insult to Irako Seigen was unwarranted. It was pride. For Gennosuke, Irako Seigen was pride itself.Takamasa Saegusa: 'Fujiki Gennosuke! It is the way of the samurai to take the head of the defeated enemy on the battleground. Do not hesitate! If you are a samurai, you must carry out the duty of a samurai!'Samurai...Saegusa, Lord of Izu, continued shouting, but Gennosuke did not attend. That word 'samurai' alone reverberated through his body.If one aims at the juncture between the base of the skull and the spine, decapitation is not that difficult, but Gennosuke could muster no more strength than a baby. He grew pale and trembled with the strain. He could only hack with his sword as if he were sawing wood. He felt nauseated, as if his own cells one after another were being annihilated. But this...Lord Tokugawa Tadanaga: 'I approve.'Takamasa Saegusa: 'Fujiki Gennosuke, for this splendid action you have received words of thanks from our lord. As a sign of his exceptional approval, you shall be given employment at Sunpu Castle. This great debt will by no means be forgotten. From this day forward you must offer your life to our lord!'Prostrating himself, Gennosuke vomited.” - Takayuki Yamaguchi

30. “Why do you need that thing?" September asked. "None of the airports back home have them.""They do. You just can't see them right," Betsy Basilstalk said with a grin. "All customs agents have them, otherwise, why would people agree to stand in line and be peered at and inspected? We all live inside the terrible engine of authority, and it grinds and shrieks and burns so that no one will say, lines on maps are silly. Where you live, the awful machinery is smaller, harder to see. Less honest, that's all. Whereas Rupert here? He's as honest as they come. Does what it says on the box.” - Catherynne M. Valente

31. “This is a perfectly good picture. And if I didn't know you, I would be impressed and charmed. But I do know you."He thought some more, wondering whether he dared say precisely what he felt, for he knew he could never explain exactly why the idea came to him. "It's the painting of a dutiful daughter," he said eventually, looking at her cautiously to see her reaction. "You want to please. You are always aware of what the person looking at this picture will think of it. Because of that you've missed something important. Does that make sense?"She thought, then nodded. "All right," she said grudgingly and with just a touch of despair in her voice. "You win."Julien grunted. "Have another go, then. I shall come back and come back until you figure it out.""And you'll know?""You'll know. I will merely get the benefit of it.” - Iain Pears

32. “Pride, willfulness, and rebellion against what “is written” are the causes of the Bible being hard to understand. The hard part, then, is not understanding with the mind, but being willing to obey what he does not want to obey. If a person could not understand the truth, he could not reject it.” - Finis Jennings Dake

33. “There is no excuse for anyone to misunderstand God's Word if he will, like a child, accept the Bible for what it says, and be honest enough to consecrate himself to obey it. He must accept the Bible as God's Word. He must believe that God could not be honest if He sought to hide from man the very things He will judge him by in the end. He must accept the Bible as the final Court of Appeal on its own subjects, and forget man's interpretations and distortion of the Word. He must believe that God knows what He is talking about; that He knows how to express Himself in human language; that He said what He meant, and meant what He said; and that what He says on a subject is more important than what any man may say about it.” - Finis Jennings Dake

34. “A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.” - Naomi Wolf

35. “But the culture has failed, almost entirely, in inculcating internal controls on actions that have their origin in authority. For this reason, the latter constitutes a far greater danger to human survival.” - Stanley Milgram

36. “Obedience is the greatest refuge of the weak and the coward people!” - Mehmet Murat ildan

37. “But he asked himself now if he would not be disobeying God. And does not God permit love, since He surrounds it with such visible splendor?” - Guy de Maupassant

38. “The most erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.” - H.L. Mencken

39. “If the followers of the Oversoul are kept blind, if they can't judge the Oversoul's purpose for themselves, then they aren't freely choosing between good and evil, or between wise and foolish, but are only choosing to subsume themselves in the purposes of the Oversoul How can the Oversoul's plans be well-served, if all its followers are the kind of weak-souled people who are willing to obey the Oversoul without understanding? I will serve you, Oversoul, with my whole heart I'll serve you, if I understand what you're trying to do, what it means. And if your purpose is a good one... I will not be tamed, only persuaded. I will not be coerced or led blindly or tricked or bullied -- I am willing only to be convinced. If you don't trust your own basic goodness enough to tell me what you're trying to do, Oversoul, then you're confessing your own moral weakness and I'll never serve you.” - Orson Scott Card

40. “..tithing isn't something I do to clear my conscience so I can do whatever I want with the 90 percent--it also belongs to God! I must seek his direction and permission for whatever I do with the full amount. I may discover that God has different ideas than I do.” - Randy Alcorn

41. “To procrastinate obedience is to disobey God.” - Randy Alcorn

42. “There would be no more offerings. Not this day. Not any day. Humankind had suffered enough for its love of gods, its long search for God. He thought of the many centuries in which his people, the Jews, had negotiated with God, complaining, bickering, decrying the unfairness of things but always - always - returning to obedience at whatever the cost. Generations dying in the ovens of hatred. Future generations scarred by the cold fires of radiation and renewed hatred.” - Dan Simmons

43. “... primitive times had required primitive obedience, that later generations evolved to the point where parents offered themselves as sacrifice - as in the dark knights of the ovens which pocked old earth history - and that current generations had to deny any command for sacrifice. Sol had written that whatever God now took in human consciousness - whether as a mere manifestation of the subconscious in all its revanchist needs or as a more conscious attempt at philosophical and ethical evolution - humankind could no longer agree to offer up sacrifice in God's name. Sacrifice and the agreement to sacrifice had written human history in blood.” - Dan Simmons

44. “Go, send, or disobey.” - John Piper

45. “Love withers under constraints. Its very essence is liberty; it is comparable neither with obedience, jealousy, nor fear; it is there most pure, perfect, and unlimited where its votaries are in confidence, equality and unreserve.” - Percy Bysshe Shelley

46. “It's not the things I don't understand about the Bible that bother me; it's the things I understand with perfect clarity and don't comply with that keep me up at night.” - Bill Hybels

47. “The sense of mystery must always be, for mystery means being guided by obedience to Someone Who knows more than I do.” - Oswald Chambers

48. “There is something in human pride that can stand big troubles, but we need the supernatural grace and power of God to stand by us in the little things. The tiniest detail in which we obey has all the omnipotent power of the grace of God behind it. When we do our duty, not for duty’s sake, but because we believe that God is engineering our circumstances in that way, then at the very point of our obedience the whole superb grace of God is ours.” - Oswald Chambers

49. “We are apt to imagine that if Jesus Christ constrains us and we obey Him, He will lead us to great success; but He does not. If our Lord has ever constrained you, and you obeyed Him, what was your dream of His purpose? Never put your dream of success as God’s purpose for you; His purpose may be exactly the opposite.” - Oswald Chambers

50. “Because I am not yet living up to what Jesus expects me to be in those red letters in the Bible, I always define myself as somebody who is saved by God's grace and is on his way to becoming a Christian. (...) Being saved is trusting in what Christ did for us, but being Christian is dependent on the way we respond to what he did for us.” - Tony Campolo

51. “Dare we care at all about current fashions if that means reducing our ability to help hungry neighbors? How many more luxuries should we buy for ourselves and our children when others are dying for lack of bread?” - Ron Sider

52. “The union Christ had with the Father was the greatest that we can conceive of in this life—if indeed we can conceive of it. Yet we have no indication that even Jesus was constantly awash with revelations as to what he should do. His union with the Father was so great that he was at all times obedient. This obedience was something that rested in his mature will and understanding of his life before God, not on always being told “Now do this” and “Now do that” with regard to every details of his life or work.” - Dallas Willard

53. “We can't make you do anything, but we can make you wish you had. - Army saying” - Stephen E. Ambrose

54. “Lord, if you show me the way, I will follow You.” - Brother Andrew

55. “Describing Bonhoeffer's demeanor on returning to danger in Germany rather than safety in America, with "with a strong and joyful firmness such as only arises out of realized freedom. ” - Eric Metaxas

56. “Obeying orders just to obey is the mark of a person who has ceased to think. Remember, it is better to suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong.” - Ilsa J. Bick

57. “Legalism is when we try to obtain the result of obedience by our own means and strength. It is self-righteousness, as opposed to God's righteousness covering us, and the two are as different as spirit and flesh.” - Kelly Minter

58. “As our faith grows and we come to know more about the attributes of God and his role in our lives and our obedience, we learn to see our weakness in light of these words, "For is it God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13).” - Hayley and Michael DiMarco

59. “That's the excitement in obedience, finding out later what God had in mind.” - Brother Andrew

60. “It is when we are at our darkest hour, when we can see no evidence that God loves us or that he is even there to listen to our prayers, much less answer them...and yet, we still obey.It is then that the devil is reminded that his cause is lost.” - Tom King

61. “This is what we are made for: promises, pledges, and sworn oaths of obedience.” - Lauren Oliver

62. “Replace a goal of obedience with one of connection and trust instead. Children are drawn to follow those to whom they are emotionally connected. By parenting not for obedience but for relationship, kids are naturally inclined to follow your lead.” - Kelly Bartlett

63. “By disobeying immoral orders, that individual preserves the institution's highest rank - dignity.” - Bryant McGill