Let who will boast their courage in the field, I find but little safety from my shield, Nature's, not honour's law we must obey: This made me cast my useless shield away.
Archilochus

Man is made to adore and to obey: but if you will not command him, if you give him nothing to worship, he will fashion his own divinities, and find a chieftain in his own passions.
Benjamin Disraeli

Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.
Niccolo Machiavelli

National armies fight nations, royal armies fight their like, the first obey a mob, always demented and the second a king, generally sane.
J. F. C. Fuller

No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it.
Theodore Roosevelt

Obey the principles without being bound by them.
Bruce Lee

One thing I learned a long time ago as a prosecutor is that it's tough to get people to obey a law if there is not penalty for breaking it.
Roy Barnes

Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey.
Denis Diderot

Punishment may make us obey the orders we are given, but at best it will only teach an obedience to authority, not a self-control which enhances our self-respect.
Bruno Bettelheim

Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.
David Hume

Reasonable orders are easy enough to obey; it is capricious, bureaucratic or plain idiotic demands that form the habit of discipline.
Barbara Tuchman

Retaliation is related to nature and instinct, not to law. Law, by definition, cannot obey the same rules as nature.
Albert Camus

Society is well governed when its people obey the magistrates, and the magistrates obey the law.
Solon

Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey 'people.' People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war... Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest.
C. S. Lewis

The art of living consists in knowing which impulses to obey and which must be made to obey.
Sydney J. Harris

The breaking wave and the muscle as it contracts obey the same law. Delicate line gathers the body's total strength in a bold balance. Shall my soul meet so severe a curve, journeying on its way to form?
Dag Hammarskjold

The foolish and cruel notion that a wife is to obey her husband has sent more women to the grave than to the courts for a divorce.
Lemuel K. Washburn

The little things, I can obey. But the big things - how we think, what we value - those you must choose yourself. You can't let anyone - or any society - determine those for you.
Morrie Schwartz

The old sergeant from headquarters treats me like a son and takes the greatest pride in whatever I do or write. He regularly assigns me now to certain doors, and I always obey orders like the little gentleman that I am.
Richard H. Davis

The only safe ruler is he who has learned to obey willingly.
Thomas Kempis