Albert J. Nock Quotes

Independent thinking is not encouraged in a professional Army. It is a form of mutiny. Obedience is the supreme virtue.

...but for a soldier his duty is plain. He is to obey the orders of all those placed over him and whip the enemy wherever he meets him.

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

My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military.

If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one of them would remain in the army.

I liked my fellow Marines. I didn't like pointless orders.

The soldier then is, no matter in what light we examine his position, a ‘hired assassin’ – his first duty, he is told, is to ‘obey’. To obey whom? His superior officers, who in turn must obey the Government. When the mandate goes forth, ‘Kill’, he must kill and dare not ask the reason why. The government under whose orders he serves may have been elected to power on some question of internal administration … but as soon as it is in power it has the right to launch all the military and naval forces …

The military should be kept in strict subordination to the civil power.

A standing army, however necessary it may be at some times, is always dangerous to the liberties of the people. Soldiers are apt to consider themselves as a body distinct from the rest of the citizens ... They soon become attached to their officers and disposed to yield implicit obedience to their commands.

Soldierly duty of obedience has its limit.

… in time of peace armies are dangerous to liberty …. the military power shall always be held in an exact subordination to the civil authority, and be governed by it.

If you receive a military order you must obey. That is where the big difference between a military and a political order comes in. One can sabotage a political order but to disobey a military command is treason.

Generals do not always run wars the way they would like to, nor the troops under them.

In the Air Force, you get some weird orders, but you obey them no matter what.

I never expect a soldier to think.

A soldier's first duty is to obey, otherwise you might as well do away with soldiering.

I don't miss anything ever. Because to me, missing something is like going backward a little bit. I don't miss being in a punk band. For me, 'SNL' is like... this is gonna sound overly dramatic, but... the way I am, it feels like I'm a soldier, so it was like, 'What do you want me to do? Put me anywhere. Do you want me to do these sketches? Great.'

Discipline is, in a manner, nothing else but the art of inspiring the soldiers with greater fear of their officers than of the enemy. This fear has often the effect of courage: but it cannot prevail against the fierce and obstinate valor of people animated by fanaticism, or warm love of their country.

In the weakness of one kind of authority, and in the fluctuation of all, the officers of an army will remain for some time mutinous and full of faction, until some popular general, who understands the art of conciliating the soldiery, and who possesses the true spirit of command, shall draw the eyes of all men upon himself. Armies will obey him on his personal account. There is no other way of securing military obedience in this state of things.

All I'm saying is [John McCain] cannot look a soldier in the eye and say "Questioning the president is less supportive to you than extending your tour three months." You should be coming home to your family.

The soldier's body becomes a stock of accessories that are not his property.

I see many soldiers; could I but see many warriors! "Uniform" one calleth what they wear; may it not be uniform what they therewith hide!

Let the soldier yield to the civilian.

I am a soldier and I worked for the kaiser, under Ebert, Hindenburg, and Hitler, all the same way, for the past 44 years.

All our officers and fighters must always bear in mind that we are the great People's Liberation Army, we are the troops led by the great Communist Party of China. Provided we constantly observe the directives of the Party, we are sure to win.