quotations about discipline
Discipline is the process by which energy is directed along certain lines to the exclusion of others. Instead of being expended in many ways in unreflecting response to every stimulant applied, it is concentrated and made to focus itself upon a single point, or rather is confined within certain narrow limits. Discipline is often spoken of as acquired power. A more exact statement would seem to be that discipline is ability to make energy effective by confining it in a certain channel.
GEO P. BROWN
Illinois School Journal, Sep. 1886
So far as discipline is concerned, freedom means not its absence but the use of higher and more rational forms as contrasted with those that are lower or less rational. A free discipline controls the individual by appealing to his reason and conscience, and therefore to his self-respect; while an unfree control works upon some lower phase of the mind, and so tends to degrade him. It is freedom to be disciplined in as rational a manner as you are fit for.
CHARLES HORTON COOLEY
Human Nature and the Social Order
Discipline is like moonlight to cool the wild mind that is burning with anger, attachment, ignorance, jealousy and so forth. One becomes calm, concentrated, and magnificent, towering over ordinary beings like Mount Meru rising above the world. Others will be drawn to one's strength and will find great inspiration and confidence in it. It pacifies our own being, and it brings peace into the way other people and sentient beings relate to us. Thus wise practitioners protect their discipline as they would their eyes.
BSTAN-DZIN-RGYA-MTSHO
The Path to Enlightenment
Discipline in its highest notion is not punishment or self-punishment. It is rather something seminal to the self. It is our foundation. It is our architecture. It gives us structure. It allows us to steer our energies and pull our wagon.
NOAH BENSHEA
Great Quotes to Inspire Great Teachers
No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.
SENECA
I need some discipline tonight
Don't hold back
I've been very bad
Make me cry
(oh oh oh)
Daddy, make me cry
JANET JACKSON
"Discipline"
Children expect discipline. Even though discipline can be unpleasant, everyone who has experienced good discipline knows not only that he needed it, but also appreciates, and loves those who had the courage to give it to him! To attempt to raise a child without discipline is like trying to build a complex building without a blueprint, or like leaving the rebar out of concrete when it is poured, or deciding not to install the steel beams and girders into a skyscraper--you steal its spine--you create a disaster.
ZESTER HATFIELD
Daddy's Little Girl & Mommy's Little Boy
Reasonable orders are easy enough to obey; it is capricious, bureaucratic or plain idiotic demands that form the habit of discipline.
BARBARA TUCHMAN
Sand Against the Wind
Discipline is a necessity, as a regulator of society, so that those who break its rules may be taught the necessity of obeying them.
ENGINEER LOCKHART
Santa Fe Employes' Magazine, 1909
Discipline is an index to doctrine.
TERTULLIAN
attributed, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture
Discipline is the defining fire by which talent becomes ability.
ROY SMITH
attributed, Words of Wisdom and Quotable Quotes
The great end of education is to discipline rather than to furnish the mind; to train it to the use of its own powers, rather than fill it with the accumulation of others.
TRYON EDWARDS
A Dictionary of Thoughts
Grabbing hold of the true concept of discipline is like trying to pick up liquid mercury--just when you think you have it cornered, it squirts from your grasp.
THOMAS MCCAFFERTY
The Market Is Always Right
Discipline is teaching a child the way he should go. Discipline, therefore, includes everything you do to help your child learn. Unfortunately, it's one of the most misunderstood words in the English language. Most people generally think of it as punishment or as something unpleasant. We need to understand that discipline is something you do for a child. Punishment is something you do to a child when discipline fails. Both Greek and Hebrew words denoting discipline include the meaning of chastening, correction, rebuke, upbringing, training, instruction, education, and reproof. The purpose of discipline is positive--to produce a whole person, free from the faults and handicaps that hinder maximum development.
ZIG ZIGLAR
Raising Positive Kids in a Negative World
Discipline is something we despise for the moment.... We all look for a place to run, an excuse with which to stall. No one enjoys it. Yet those of us who have endured it know that the fruit it produces and the pain from which it ultimately spares us makes it worth the agony.
CHARLES F. STANLEY
How to Handle Adversity
Discipline is ... life-inhibiting, is at the very least curtailment of vital activity insofar as the latter cannot develop as it wishes but is confined within specific limits and subjected to specific rules.
ALICE MILLER
For Your Own Good
Fair and reasonable discipline is like a fence that provides protection and defines limits, demonstrating both care and concern.
LES CHRISTIE
When Church Kids Go Bad
Discipline must come through liberty. We do not consider an individual disciplined only when he has been rendered as artificially silent as a mute and as immovable as a paralytic. He is an individual annihilated, not disciplined.
MARIA MONTESSORI
American Annals of the Deaf, 1914
Life without discipline is like a ship without a rudder.
RONIE MATHEW THOMAS
Primary Essays and Proverbs
Discipline is like spinach. We may not care for it ourselves but feel sure it would be good for everybody else.
ANONYMOUS