70 Quotes On Discipline

In the pursuit of personal growth and achievement, discipline stands as a cornerstone among the traits of successful individuals. Whether in the realm of personal development, professional aspirations, or creative endeavors, the power of discipline cannot be underestimated. It acts as the bridge between goals and accomplishments, fostering consistency, resilience, and a strong sense of purpose. In this collection, we've gathered 70 insightful quotes from renowned thinkers, leaders, and visionaries who have harnessed the power of discipline in their own lives. These words of wisdom not only inspire but also provide a blueprint for instilling discipline in your everyday routine, helping you to unlock your potential and achieve your dreams. Dive in, reflect on these transformative insights, and take the first step towards a more disciplined, fulfilling life.

1. “Where did we ever get the crazy idea that in order to make children do better, first we have to make them feel worse? Think of the last time you felt humiliated or treated unfairly. Did you feel like cooperating or doing better?” - Jane Nelsen

2. “If you dedicate your attention to discipline in your life you become smarter while you are writing than while you are hanging out with your pals or in any other line of work.” - Russell Banks

3. “When an individual is motivated by great and powerful convictions of truth, then he disciplines himself, not because of the demands of the church, but because of the knowledge within his heart” - Gordon B. Hinckley

4. “Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity growswith the ability to say no to oneself.” - Abraham Joshua Heschel

5. “It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.” - Edmund Burke

6. “In practice we always base our preparations against an enemy on the assumption that his plans are good; indeed, it is right to rest our hopes not on a belief in his blunders, but on the soundness of our provisions. Nor ought we to believe that there is much difference between man and man, but to think that the superiority lies with him who is reared in the severest school.” - Thucydides

7. “Self-control is the chief element in self-respect, and self-respect is the chief element in courage.” - Thucydides

8. “The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.” - David Foster Wallace

9. “Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.” - Thomas Jefferson

10. “You can't make your kids do anything. All you can do is make them wish they had. And then, they will make you wish you hadn't made them wish they had.” - Marshall B. Rosenberg

11. “True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline.” - Mortimer J. Adler

12. “football is like life - it requires perserverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication and respect for authority.” - Vince Lombardi

13. “DisciplineI am old and I have hadmore than my share of good and bad. I've had love and sorrow, seen sudden deathand been left alone and of love bereft. I thought I would never love againand I thought my life was grief and pain. The edge between life and death was thin, but then I discovered discipline. I learned to smile when I felt sad, I learned to take the good and the bad, I learned to care a great deal morefor the world about me than before. I began to forget the "Me" and "I"and joined in life as it rolled by: this may not mean sheer ecstasybut is better by far than "I" and "Me.” - Meryl Gordon

14. “The overman...Who has organized the chaos of his passions, given style to his character, and become creative. Aware of life's terrors, he affirms life without resentment. ” - Friedrich Nietzsche

15. “Misbehavior and punishment are not opposites that cancel each other - on the contrary they breed and reinforce each other.” - Haim G. Ginott

16. “As we grow detached from things, we come (with God's help) to master our desires, and we give the mastery over to God. Discipline and divine grace heal the intellect and the will of the effects of concupiscence. We can begin to see things clearly.” - Scott Hahn

17. “Parents teach children discipline for two different, indeed diametrically opposed, reasons: to render the child submissive to them and to make him independent of them. Only a self-disciplined person can be obedient; and only such a person can be autonomous.” - Thomas Stephen Szasz

18. “As his mind becomes purer and his emotions come under control, his thoughts become clearer and his instincts truer. As he learns to live more and more in harmony with his higher Self, his body's natural intuition becomes active of itself. The result is that false desires and unnatural instincts which have been imposed upon it by others or by himself will become weaker and weaker and fall away entirely in time. This may happen without any attempt to undergo an elaborate system of self-discipline on his part: yet it will affect his way of living, his diet, his habits. False cravings like the craving for smoking tobacco will vanish of their own accord; false appetites like the appetite for alcoholic liquor or flesh food will likewise vanish; but the more deep-seated the desire, the longer it will take to uproot it--except in the case of some who will hear and answer a heroic call for an abrupt change.” - Paul Brunton

19. “Why is discipline important? Discipline teaches us to operate by principle rather than desire. Saying no to our impulses (even the ones that are not inherently sinful) puts us in control of our appetites rather than vice versa. It deposes our lust and permits truth, virtue, and integrity to rule our minds instead.” - John MacArthur Jr.

20. “Good habits are worth being fanatical about.” - John Irving

21. “While the government is "studying" and funding and organizing its Big Thought, nothing is being done. But the citizen who is willing to Think Little, and, accepting the discipline of that, to go ahead on his own, is already solving the problem. A man who is trying to live as a neighbor to his neighbors will have a lively and practical understanding of the work of peace and brotherhood, and let there be no mistake about it - he is doing that work...A man who is willing to undertake the discipline and the difficulty of mending his own ways is worth more to the conservation movement than a hundred who are insisting merely that the government and the industries mend their ways.(pg.87, "Think Little")” - Wendell Berry

22. “Why are those who are notoriously undisciplined and unmoral also most contemptuous of religion and morality? They are trying to solace their own unhappy lives by pulling the happy down to their own abysmal depths.” - Fulton J. Sheen

23. “Discipline isn't about showing a dog who's boss; it's about takingresponsibility for a living creature you have brought into your world.” - Cesar Millan

24. “One painful duty fulfilled makes the next plainer and easier.” - Helen Keller

25. “Whether our action is wholesome or unwholesome depends on whether that action or deed arises from a disciplined or undisciplined state of mind. It is felt that a disciplined mind leads to happiness and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering, and in fact it is said that bringing about discipline within one's mind is the essence of the Buddha's teaching.” - Dalai Lama XIV

26. “Those who have nothing have only their discipline.” - Alain Badiou

27. “Hierarchy and discipline gave shape to the world;that was what he had always believed.Life was made easy by adherence toa rigid structure.But maybe that only really worked when you were at the top of the ladder,when you were doing well.The further down the rungs you went,the more of a victim of circumstances you became and the less it mattered whether or not you were in control.” - James Lovegrove

28. “Discipline isn't a dirty word. Far from it. Discipline is the one thing that separates us from chaos and anarchy. Discipline implies timing. It's the precursor to good behavior, and it never comes from bad behavior. People who associate discipline with punishment are wrong: with discipline, punishment is unnecessary.” - Buck Brannaman

29. “A Christian understanding of the world sees a child's character not as genetically determined but as shaped to a significant degree by parental discipleship and discipline.” - Russell D. Moore

30. “The root of impatience in discipline is really the same as that of overindulgence. In both instances, parents want to make up for lost time, to speed up a process that takes time.” - Russell D. Moore

31. “Next morning I went over to Paul’s for coffee and told him I had finished. “Good for you,” he said without looking up. “Start the next one today.” - Steven Pressfield

32. “We must do our work for its own sake, not for fortune or attention or applause.” - Steven Pressfield

33. “There are so many charlatans in the world of education. They teach for a couple of years, come up with a few clever slogans, build their websites, and hit the lecture circuit. In this fast-food-society, simple solutions to complex problems are embraced far too often. We can do better. I hope that people who read this book realize that true excellence takes sacrifice, mistakes, and enormous amounts of effort. After all, there are no shortcuts.” - Rafe Esquith

34. “We need patient people who are able to endure the toughest disciplines.” - Samael Aun Weor

35. “In peace-armies discipline meant the hunt, not of an average but of an absolute; the hundred per cent standard in which the ninety-nine were played down to the level of the weakest man on parade…. The deeper the discipline, the lower was the individual excellence; also the more sure the performance. – T. E. Lawrence Seven Pillars of Wisdom” - T.E. Lawrence

36. “Tough love may be tough to give, but it is a necessity of life and assurance of positive growth.” - T.F. Hodge

37. “It must take a lot of self-discipline,' she said. 'Oh, I don't know. I don't have much.' He felt himself about to say again, and unable to resist saying, that 'Dumas, I think it was Dumas, some terrifically prolific Frenchman, said that writing novels is a simple matter - if you write one page a day, you'll write one novel a year, two pages a day, two novels a year, three pages, three novels, and so on. And how long does it take to cover a page with writing? Twenty minutes? An hour? So you see. Very easy really.''I don't know,' she said, laughing. 'I can't even bring myself to write a letter.' 'Oh, now that's hard.'("Novelty")” - John Crowley

38. “[God] disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness.” - Scott Hahn

39. “Every man has a specific skill, whether it is discovered or not, that more readily and naturally comes to him than it would to another, and his own should be sought and polished. He excels best in his niche - originality loses its authenticity in one's efforts to obtain originality.” - Criss Jami

40. “Man was designed in a way in which he must eat in order to give him a solid reason to go to work everyday. This helps to keep him out of trouble. God is wise.” - Criss Jami

41. “I always make sure that the world will prove me right. It gives me the freedom to contradict myself.” - Criss Jami

42. “Showing a lack of self-control is in the same vein granting authority to others: 'Perhaps I need someone else to control me.” - Criss Jami

43. “‎"If there is no discipline, there is anarchy. Good citizenship demands attention to responsibilities as well as rights.” - Joe Clark

44. “Now public business takes up so much of my time that I must get time a Sundays or a nights to look after my own matters.” - Samuel Pepys

45. “It was more than just material prosperity. America in 1960 was a country where restraint and boundaries were the natural conditions in all arenas. People married younger and stayed married; even with those added twenty-eight million, there were fewer divorces in 1960 than there had been a decade earlier. People did not have children unless they were married—only 2.5 percent of children were born out of wedlock, though the number in black households was disturbingly high—some 20 percent.” - Jeff Greenfield

46. “The problem with patience and discipline is that it requires both of them to develop each of them.” - Thomas M. Sterner

47. “The best measure of a spiritual life is not its ecstasies but its obedience.” - Oswald Chambers

48. “We may well find that if we are to fulfill God's mandate on earth, we will need to communicate less often so we can communicate more. We will need to forsake the ease and the pace of quantity for the reflective significance of quality.” - Tim Challies

49. “We cultivate our feelings the way we cultivate a garden: we can't entirely prevent weeds from coming up, but we can take care to remove them before they do much harm.” - Phillip Cary

50. “I do not have it in for relativism. In many respects I find it a fascinating, even attractive, alternative. It engenders epistemological humility, defeats an arrogant pomposity in belief, even promotes a sort of democratic ideal in matters of knowledge. Perhaps its most comforting feature is that it requires no hard work at all in the matter of justifying beliefs.” - David L. Wolfe

51. “Alex understood such discipline. He knew the rarity of it, and the cost. And on the rare occasions when he happened to touch her, he did wonder what else she might have been, if she had not been so determined to be typical.” - Meredith Duran

52. “Too often we forget that discipline really means to teach, not to punish. A disciple is a student, not a recipient of behavioural consequences.” - Daniel J. Siegel

53. “To make 2013 (or any other)your year, keep it simple:1) Count your blessings first2) Whatever you did last year, Do it better3) Go step by step, One day at a time.4) Create/make your own opportunities.5) Believe in your abilities at all times,6) Qutting is not an option. Keep Going.7) Finish what you started” - Pablo

54. “Most of us don't mind doing what we ought to do when it doesn't interfere with what we want to do, but it takes discipline and maturity to do what we ought to do whether we want to or not.” - Joseph B. Wirthlin

55. “All writing is discipline, but screenwriting is a drill sergeant.” - Robert McKee

56. “If there is no element of asceticism in our lives, if we give free rein to the desires of the flesh (taking care of course to keep within the limits of what seems permissible to the world), we shall find it hard to train for the service of Christ. When the flesh is satisfied it is hard to pray with cheerfulness or to devote oneself to a life of service which calls for much self-renunciation.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

57. “To not say all that can be said is the secret of discipline and economy.” - Dejan Stojanovic

58. “There are many whose tongues might govern multitudes, if they could govern their tongues.” - Prentice

59. “You will know as much of God, and only as much of God, as you are willing to put into practice.” - Eric Liddell

60. “Discipline is a given; the choice is whether it is applied internally or externally.” - Orrin Woodward

61. “A disciplined mind leads to happiness, and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering.” - Dalai Lama XIV

62. “Among men, it seems, historically at any rate, the processes of coordination and disintegration follow each other with great regularity, and the index of the coordination is the measure of the disintegration which follows. There is no mob like a group of well-drilled soldiers when they have thrown off their discipline. And there is no lostness like that which comes to a man when a perfect and certain pattern has dissolved about him. There is no hater like one who has greatly loved.” - John Steinbeck

63. “Confidence is a pencil best sharpened with paper.” - Kale Burton

64. “Children cannot develop a sense of inner discipline if all of the control comes from the outside.” - Babara Coloroso

65. “Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to great achievements gained slowly over time.” - John C. Maxwell

66. “You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.” - John C. Maxwell

67. “Discipline is aimed at formation for a specific end, and that end is determined by our founding narrative.” - James K.A. Smith

68. “All discourses and disciplines proceed from commitments and beliefs that are ultimately religious in nature. No scientific discourse (whether natural science or social science) simply discloses to us the facts of reality to which theology must submit; rather, every discourse is, in some sense, religious. The playing field has been leveled. Theology is most persistently postmodern when it rejects a lingering correlational false humility and instead speaks unapologetically from the the primacy of Christian revelation and the church's confessional language.” - James K.A. Smith

69. “Sweetest of all is liberty. This we have chosen and this we pay for. We have embraced the laws of Lykurgus, and they are stern laws. They have schooled us to scorn the life of leisure, which this rich land of ours would bestow upon us if we wished, and instead to enroll ourselves in the academy of discipline and sacrifice. Guided by these laws, our fathers for twenty generations have breathed the blessed air of freedom and have paid the bill in full when it was presented. We, their sons, can do no less.” - Steven Pressfield

70. “Not every affection which seems good is to be immediately followed. Neither is every opposite affection to be immediately avoided. Sometimes it is expedient to use restraint even in good desires and wishes, lest through importunity you fall into distraction of mind, lest through want of discipline you become a stumbling block to others.” - Thomas A. Kempis