Blind Obedience Quotes

• If patriotism were defined, not as blind obedience to government, not as submissive worship to flags and anthems, but rather as love of one's country, one's fellow citizens (all over the world), as loyalty to the principles of justice and democracy, then patriotism would require us to disobey our government, when it violated those principles.

  Howard Zinn

  Loyalty, Country, Government

  Howard Zinn (1990). “Declarations of Independence: Cross-examining American Ideology”, Perennial

  99 Copy quote

  Show source

• War means blind obedience, unthinking stupidity, brutish callousness, wanton destruction, and irresponsible murder.

  Alexander Berkman

  Peace, War, Stupid

  Alexander Berkman (2010). “Now and After: the ABC of Anarchist Communism”, p.30, Lulu.com

  61 Copy quote

  Show source

• The doctrine of blind obedience and unqualified submission to any human power, whether civil or ecclesiastical, is the doctrine of despotism.

  Angelina Grimke

  Doctrine, Libertarian, Unqualified

  Sarah Grimke, Angelina Grimke (2015). “On Slavery and Abolitionism: Essays and Letters”, p.97, Penguin

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is a difference between being a leader and being a boss. Both are based on authority. A boss demands blind obedience; a leader earns his authority through understanding and trust.

  Klaus Balkenhol

  Motivational, Leadership, Differences

  54 Copy quote

• Nothing is more destructive of human dignity than a rule which imposes a mute and blind obedience.

  Anthony Eden

  Dignity, Blind, Obedience

  17 Copy quote

• Inquiry is human; blind obedience brutal. Truth never loses by the one but often suffers by the other.

  William Penn

  Suffering, Inquiry, Blind

  William Penn (1726). “A Collection of the Works of William Penn: To which is Prefixed a Journal of His Life, with Many Original Letters and Papers Not Before Published”, p.828

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Of all ennobling sentiments, patriotism may be the most easily manipulated. On the one hand, it gives powerful expression to what is best in a nation's character: a commitment to principle, a willingness to sacrifice, a devotion to the community by the choice of the individual. But among its toxic fruits are intolerance, belligerence and blind obedience, perhaps because it blooms most luxuriantly during times of war.

  Nancy Gibbs

  Powerful, War, Character

  18 Copy quote

• Science ... looks skeptically at all claims to knowledge, old and new. It teaches not blind obedience to those in authority but to vigorous debate, and in many respects that's the secret of its success.

  Carl Sagan

  Secret, Looks, Old And New

  15 Copy quote

• Blind obedience in the name of patriotism or religion ultimately takes our lives.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Names, Blind, Obedience

  7 Copy quote

• What we call 'morals' is simply blind obedience to words of command.

  Havelock Ellis

  Atheism, Politics, Moral

  1923 The Dance of Life.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Those who speak of blind obedience may appear to know many things, but they do not understand the doctrines of the gospel. There is an obedience that comes from a knowledge of the truth that transcends any external form of control. We are not obedient because we are blind, we are obedient because we can see.

  Boyd K. Packer

  Doctrine, May, Speak

  Boyd K. Packer (1998). “The shield of faith”, Bookcraft, Incorporated

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Blind obedience is itself an abuse of human morality. It is a misuse of the human soul in the name of religious commitment. It is a sin against individual conscience. It makes moral children of the adults from whom moral agency is required. It makes a vow, which is meant to require religious figures to listen always to the law of God, beholden first to the laws of very human organizations in the person of very human authorities. It is a law that isn't even working in the military and can never substitute for personal morality.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Religious, Children, Military

  8 Copy quote

• We are not obedient because we are blind, we are obedient because we can see.

  Boyd K. Packer

  Blind, Obedience, Obedient

  Boyd K. Packer (1998). “The shield of faith”, Bookcraft, Incorporated

  12 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Women, Mother And Daughter, Mind

  1792 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, pt.1, ch.2.

  56 Copy quote

  Show source

• The kind of "blind obedience" once theologized as the ultimate step to holiness, is itself blind. It blinds a person to the insights and foresight and moral perspective of anyone other than an authority figure.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Perspective, Holiness, Steps

  9 Copy quote

• Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience; but, as blind obedience is ever sought for by power, tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they endeavor to keep women in the dark because, the former only want slaves, and the latter a play-thing.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Dark, Play, Tyrants

  1792 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, pt.1, ch.2.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Blind obedience is a sure sign of trouble. The likelihood of religion becoming evil is greatly diminished when there is freedom for individual thinking and when honest inquiry is encouraged.

  Charles Kimball

  Thinking, Evil, Inquiry

  10 Copy quote

• No master can make me swear blind obedience.

  Horace

  Latin, Blind, Obedience

  9 Copy quote

• The Middle Ages were an era of mysticism, ruled by blind faith and blind obedience to the dogma that faith is superior to reason. The Renaissance was specifically the rebirth of reason, the liberation of man's mind, the triumph of rationality over mysticism - a faltering, incomplete, but impassioned triumph that led to the birth of science, of individualism, of freedom.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, History, Mind

  Ayn Rand (1971). “The New Left: the Anti-Industrial Revolution”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I taught public school for 26 years, but I just can't do it anymore. For years I asked the school board to let me teach a curriculum that doesn't hurt kids, but they always had other fish to fry. If you hear of a job where I don't have to hurt kids to make a living, let me know. The truth is that schools don't really teach anything, but blind obedience.

  John Taylor Gatto

  Hurt, Jobs, School

  8 Copy quote

• Always keep your eye on the President of the church, and if he ever tells you to do anything, even if it is wrong, and you do it, the lord will bless you for it, but you don't need to worry. The lord will never let his mouthpiece lead the people astray.

  Marion G. Romney

  Eye, People, Worry

  4 Copy quote

• "One of the advantages of having laws is the pleasure one may take in breaking them. We here are not children, Mr. Gurgeh." Hamin waved the pipestem round the tables of people. "Rules and laws exist only because we take pleasure in doing what they forbid, but as long as most of the people obey such proscriptions most of the time, they have done their job; blind obedience would imply we are - ha!" - Hamin chuckled and pointed at the drone with the pipe - "no more than robots!"

  Iain Banks

  Jobs, Children, Law

  "The Player of Games (The Culture, Book 2)". Book by Iain Banks (Chapter 2, p. 279), 1988.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Under any religion, the preestablished impersonal code transcends the right of the individual to explore, experience, and marvel at the mysteries of his own life and death. Religions introduce us not to God but to slavery. They deprive us of our freedom to explore our own souls and to discover the endless and wondrous possibilities presented to us by an infinite universe. And most often the method of religions is fear, not love. They demand blind obedience and often obedience to dreadful dogma.

  Gerry Spence

  Life And Death, Soul, Religion

  Gerry Spence (2002). “Seven Simple Steps to Personal Freedom: An Owner's Manual for Life”, p.46, Macmillan

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• A servile race Who, in mere want of fault, all merit place; Who blind obedience pay to ancient schools, Bigots to Greece, and slaves to musty rules.

  Charles Churchill

  School, Race, Criticism

  Charles Churchill (1776). “Poems”, p.17

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• But you don't need to worry. The Lord will never let his mouthpiece lead the people astray.

  Marion G. Romney

  Worry, People, Needs

  Marion G. Romney (1971). “Look to God and live: discourses of Marion G. Romney”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source