Orderliness

“ Order is the sanity of the mind, the health of the body, the peace of the city, the security of the State. As the beams to a house, as the bones to the microcosm of man, so is order to all things.—Southey. ”

“ To know where one is going and what one wishes—this is order; to keep one’s word and one’s engagements—again order; to have everything ready under one’s hand, to be able to dispose of all one’s forces, and to have all one’s means of whatever kind under command—still order; to discipline one’s habits, one’s effort, one’s wishes; to organize one’s life, to distribute one’s time, to take the measure of one’s duties and make one’s rights respected; to employ one’s capital and resources, one’s talent and one’s chances profitably—all this belongs to and is included in the word order. ”

“ I have never in my life questioned or disobeyed an order, though many and many a time have I risked my life, health, and reputation, in obeying orders, or even hints to execute plans and purposes, not to my liking. ”

“ How Not to Give Orders.—On the other hand you will yourself stimulate his disobedience if by tone or words you insult his manliness, question his loyalty and obedience, or by threats dare him to disobey. We see this often illustrated in the affairs of daily life, where men untrained in authority are required to exercise it, and generally give orders in such a manner as to stir up trouble rather than to get cheerful obedience. ”

“ I think it chiefly arises from a sort of distorted notion that there is something degrading and undignified in obeying an order. Why, man, obedience and discipline are the very life-blood of every institution worthy of the name. ”

“ I can give an order when I know what order to give. I can make men obey it, willing or unwilling. But I'm stupid, I tell you: stupid. When there's no Gordon to command me, I can't think of what to do. ”

“ By organization and arrangement the occasions of disorder are avoided. Quarrels are obviated by not permitting crowds, jostling, and collisions. Dishonesty is checked by want of opportunity; remissness, by the watchful eye and by definite tests of performance.
7. The awe and influence of authority are maintained by a certain formality and state. Forms and ritual are adapted to all the operations of law: persons in authority are clothed with dignity and inviolability. The greater the necessity of enforcing obedience, the more stern and imposing is the ritual of authority. ”

“ If anyone thinks that an order is based on a misunderstanding on the part of the superior or on a false basis it goes without saying that it is his duty and responsibility -- that is, the duty and responsibility of every one of you -- to say so, and also to state his reasons truthfully like a man if he is convinced that they deprecate the order. ”

“ There is discipline and order among men, because it is necessary. An Army cannot be manœuvred, a Government cannot be carried on, without it. Is there not a discipline and order in all heaven and earth? And that discipline is carried out by simple word of command. A word from me will make a man rush upon certain death. A word from certain other men will make me rush on certain death. ”

“ Perfect order, silence, obedience, alacrity, and courage make an assemblage formidable and respectable. We want law and order—we are seriously injured by every scene or act of violence, no matter how transient. Let us have no more of this humbug. If we are determined men we have enough to learn and to do without wasting our time in hissing and groaning coaches. ”

“ I feel and have always felt that order rebels against and struggles against disorder, that order has an up-hill job, in gardens, experiments, suburbs, everything alike; from the very beginnings of my experience I discovered hostility to order, a constant escaping from control. ”

“ Adherence to rigid order, and unconditional obedience to reasonable demands, and a mild discipline, with strict control, and a regular system by which one was set to watch another, were the means used for arousing to the utmost a spirit of emulation and giving a sharp spur to ambition. ”

“ Orders were to go on—and order, plus discipline, plus the individual's sense of responsibility, plus that fear of his that his mates may know how fearful of other things he is—make it possible for armies to be armies instead of mobs and for battles to be won. ”

“ For order produces peace; it makes known what is to be done, and when; it restrains the flightiness of the thoughts; it advances and finishes every work that is begun; it banishes idleness; while the very recurrence of the time warns thee of thy duty, and every hour calls for its own employment.
Man. Thy counsel, O Lord, is just and acceptable to me, but how can it be practised? Thou knowest, O Lord, how much time is often snatched from us, even against our will, by our employments, our affairs, visits, conversations of friends, and other necessities of this life. ”

“ Implicit faith in their leaders, implicit obedience, became not so much a part of the rule of the order as a habit of the mind. No task was too rough or too delicate but that the order could somewhere place its finger on the man to execute it. ”

“ After all, free political institutions presuppose a certain amount of order and discipline. If you are without this order and discipline, and if you do not wish for the drawbacks of order and discipline, why do you make a fuss to get what can only exist by order and discipline? ”

“ In much the same mood I went doggedly through my day's work in taking over charge and reducing chaos to order--or, rather, conventional order, for through all the disgraceful neglect of ordinary routine ran the unmistakable thread of one man's control, and of a strong man at that, even in its favouritism, its flagrant derelictions from the ordinary conception of a magistrate's duty. ”

“ Do you inquire of me by what means you ought to withstand the execution of this diabolical law? It is not for me to determine the action of any one but myself. ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,’ is the second great command which all should faithfully try to obey. ”

“ It was, in short, subversive of the established order of things, and neither you, nor I, nor they, accept quite gracefully such propositions, if in their application to ourselves, they would be a sore and bitter loss—if it would render less secure and lofty our seat on the social or political throne. We revolt and we blame the disturber of the old established order of things—the order, which having been good enough for our fathers is surely good enough for you and for me. ”

“ Not only the Order but each member is bound to take every opportunity of assisting every other by every method within his power. We employ them, we promote them, we give them the preference in every kind of patronage at our command. But these obligations are points of honour rather than of law. ”

“ Servants take pride in the orders they receive; that our badge of honour is an ‘Order’ is a significant use of words. It is still true that ‘Order is heaven’s first law’ and order is the outcome of authority. ”

“ He learned respect for authority and order, scorning the malcontents, who, hornet-like, always stand sting-end uppermost, stinging their friends to show their independence, their enemies to show their impartiality, and each other to keep in practice ”

“ But in western countries the tendency is all to divide the world into two classes, master and man, to organise—which means, of course, authority and submission—and to make obedience one of the greatest of virtues. ”

“ M. Commandant, if order really reigned in our society, if the social organism were really healthy—in other words, if there were in our social relations no crying abuses, if it were not established that one man shall die of hunger while another gratifies his every whim of luxury, then you would see me in the front ranks of the defenders of this orderly state. ”

“ A deliberate attempt may be made to recognize many wills, harmonize discords. Order may be brought out of chaos, and the limits of the realm within the borders of which order reigns may be indefinitely extended. ”

“ You can do no more manly thing than find some way of expressing, in word or look, your appreciation of it.
6. Express Your Will, Not by Commands, but by Suggestions.—It is God's order that you should be the head of the family. You are clothed with authority. But this does not authorize you to be stern and harsh, as an officer in the army. Your authority is the dignity of love. When it is not clothed in love it ceases to have the substance of authority. A simple suggestion that may embody a wish, an opinion or an argument, becomes one who reigns over such a kingdom as yours. ”

“ And is this the way, sir, that you are to show yourselves the advocates of order? You take up a system calculated to uncivilize the world—to destroy order—to trample on religion—to stifle in the heart, not merely the generosity of noble sentiment, but the affections of social nature ”

“ Order is our motto, and we practise it, while, if men strive to follow our example, they content themselves with stamping the motto on the buttons of their national guards. Our monarchy is order, and order is absolute. ”

“ Some one will come to bring you farther orders, depend upon it; find out what those orders are, and let them instantly be communicated to me; but on no account or consideration suffer yourselves to be kept together in one place. ”

“ But the peasants, the soldiers, who are at the bottom of the social scale, who have no kind of advantage from the existing order, who are in the very lowest position of subjection and humiliation, what forces them to believe that the existing order in which they are in their humble and disadvantageous position is the order which ought to exist, and which they ought to sup port even at the cost of evil actions contrary to their conscience? ”

“ He never countermanded an order, and never receded from a position once taken, even if in his own heart he recognised later it was an unwise one. But the forethought and caution, the deliberation in decision that were his by nature, made the occasions on which he regretted an order very seldom, and if such there were, no matter, the order stood. ”

“ From the soldier on the battlefield, the most honorable of men, to the clerk in a bank, we are almost all of us obeying orders, doing not what we ourselves think best or pleasantest but what someone in authority thinks right. ”

“ Order is correctly said to be heaven's first law, as, without it, there could be nothing but confusion. In all deliberative bodies, to avoid confusion and economize time, there must be some rules of order. ”

“ If you say, he has made things to go, set them going, and left them— then I say, If his machine interfered with his answering the prayer of a single child, he would sweep it from him—not to bring back chaos, but to make room for his child. But order is divine, and cannot be obstructive to its own higher ends; it must subserve them. Order, free order, neither chaos, nor law unpossessed and senseless, is the home of Thought. ”

“ Yet I will say this,—that I think men will find me less unruly than formerly, for, as I have accepted you for my chief, so am I willing to render you obedience in any manner soever you think right to demand it. ”

“ The ultimate power to command must rest with that authority which, if necessary, can force people to obey; and any plan of association which seeks to ignore the part which physical force plays in life is necessarily incomplete. ”

“ To draw the line between necessary subordination and vexatious interference—to apportion to each a fair share of work, and to see that the work is done—to be liberal and considerate without over-indulgence,—these are duties requiring judgment, moderation, method, decision, often no small share of moral courage; in other words, precisely the same qualities which are wanted in governing bodies of workpeople. ”

“ To sum up all this in one formula: officers are conventionally amenable to society; society, with its officers and its rules of conduct, amenable to the purpose of society; the design of individual life, to the individuals that compose it; individuals, with their rules of conduct, amenable each to his own conscience; and all to the law of the universe, to the Eternal Right, which represents the conscience of God. ”

“ Obedience, definite subjection and control, detailed organization is the lesson enforced by the rule of causal necessity in the outer world of space and time in which action takes [31] place. Unlimited freedom, the heightening of consciousness for its own sake, sheer reveling in noble ideals, the law of the inner world. What more can mortal man ask? ”

“ Our notion of order in civil society being taken from the analogy of subjects inanimate and dead, is frequently false; we consider commotion and action as contrary to its nature; we think that obedience, secrecy, and the silent passing of affairs through the hands of a few, are its real constituents. ”

“ The belief that any institution, system, organization, or arrangement has reached an absolute form is about as far as human folly can go. The friar orders looked upon themselves as the sum of human achievement in man-driving and God-persuading, divinely appointed to rule, fixed in their power, far above suspicion. ”

“ To this purpose, my lords, it is indispensably necessary, that the military subordination be inviolably preserved, and that discipline be discreetly exercised without any partial indulgence, or malicious severities; that every man be promoted according to his desert, and that military merit alone give any pretensions to military preferment. ”

“ Ah! how few of us, when the will is strong with its purpose, can believe in the power of agencies so apparently insignificant! And yet all great influences effect their ends silently, unobtrusively, and with a force that seems at first glance to be altogether inadequate. ”

“ We read of no power, no authority, neither the power and influence of intercession, nor the authority or right of command being ever, even by implication, committed to her; and we dare not of our own minds venture to take for granted a statement of so vast magnitude, involving associations so awful. ”