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Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.
--
Letter of Instructions to the Captains of the Virginia Regiments (29 July 1759).

 

George Washington

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If circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist.

 

Alexander Hamilton

 

I believe that through discipline, though not through discipline alone, we can achieve serenity, and a certain small but precious measure of the freedom from the accidents of incarnation, and charity, and that detachment which preserves the world which it renounces. I believe that through discipline we can learn to preserve what is essential to our happiness in more and more adverse circumstances, and to abandon with simplicity what would else have seemed to us indispensable; that we come a little to see the world without the gross distortion of personal desire, and in seeing it so, accept more easily our earthly privation and its earthly horror — But because I believe that the reward of discipline is greater than its immediate objective, I would not have you think that discipline without objective is possible: in its nature discipline involves the subjection of the soul to some perhaps minor end; and that end must be real, if the discipline is not to be factitious. Therefore I think that all things which evoke discipline: study, and our duties to men and to the commonwealth, war, and personal hardship, and even the need for subsistence, ought to be greeted by us with profound gratitude, for only through them can we attain to the least detachment; and only so can we know peace.

 

J. Robert Oppenheimer

 

That Action is best which procures the greatest Happiness for the greatest Numbers; and that worst, which, in like manner, occasions misery.

 

Francis Hutcheson

 

Alexander: No spunk, simple as that! Your brother's an army deserter!
Michael: Oh yes, I've resigned my commission.
Alexander: He's refusing to return to duty.
Michael: On grounds of ill health, Papa. I'm sick of the Army.
Alexander: No discipline, that's the problem!
Michael: No, it's riddled with discipline, that's the problem. That and Poland.

 

Tom Stoppard

 

As a day well spent procures a happy sleep, so a life well employed procures a happy death.

 

Leonardo da Vinci