Quotes About Compliance

The violence of our time is caused by obedience.

Submission is the willingness to give up our right to ourselves, to freely surrender our insistence on having our own way all the time.

When I have time, I'll be a good girl and do my chores.

When we had surmounted the acclivity, I was about to withdraw my arm from his, but by a slight tightening of the elbow was tacitly informed that such was not his will, and accordingly desisted.

And indeed this was the best policy—for to submit and oblige was the governess's part, to consult their own pleasure was that of the pupils.

Rule 1: When all else fails, follow instructions. And Rule 2: Don't be an asshole.

Maybe I'll obey the rules. Some of them, anyway, who knows? What are you going to do if I don't, by the way, and haven't I asked you this before?

You will obey the rules, won't you?" he asked suddenly. Mixture of menace and sarcasm. And maybe a little affection, too. "Of course!" Again I shrugged. "What are they, by the way? I've forgotten. Oh, we don't make any new vampires; we do not wander

Doing what you're supposed to do is always boring.

Doing what you're supposed to do is always boring. I can't imagine anything worse than being required to have fun.

In this city, apparently, the authorities crushed revolutions before they started, by turning them into homework.

I define a factory as an organization that has figured it out, a place where people go to do what they're told and earn a paycheck.

When those in power use shame to bully the weak into compliance, they are stealing from us. They tell us that they will expose our secrets (not good enough, not hardworking enough, not from the right family, made a huge mistake once) and will use the truth to exile us from our tribe. This shame, the shame that lives deep within each of us, is used as a threat. And when those in power use it, they take away part of our humanity.

A factory demands a compliant workforce in order to succeed. And so we've organized around this idea of compliance in all things—in school, in the foods we eat, in the way we respond to marketing. And it's a dead end.

The factory is a dead end and so is compliance. More obedience will not make us better. That's why graceful is in such demand.

It's not an accident that school is like a job, not an accident that there are supervisors and rules and tests and quality control. You do well, you get another job (the next grade), and continue to do well and you get a real job. Do poorly, don't fit in, rebel—and you are kicked out of the system.

We run our schools like factories. We line kids up in straight rows, put them in batches (called grades), and work very hard to make sure there are no defective parts. Nobody standing out, falling behind, running ahead, making a ruckus. Playing it safe. Following the rules. Those seem like the best ways to avoid failure.

As a general rule, managers don't like deviants. By definition, deviance from established standards is a failure for a manager working to deliver on spec. So, most of the time, most managers work hard to stamp out deviance (and the deviants who create it).

The cog is standing by, waiting for instructions.

Schools have figured this out. They need shortcuts in order to successfully process millions of students a year, and they've discovered that fear is a great shortcut on the way to teaching compliance.

Everybody is quiet. ?Who read the thirty pages I assigned last night?? Miss Saunders asks. Most of the hands go up, including mine, even though I didn't read none of it.

Will did not think that was fair, but he accepted that kings were often unfair and there was naught to be done about it.

I was young and frightened and craved respect and its ugly cousin, approval, so I did as I was told.

Nick, fetch my car, fetch my clothes, sweep the chimney, make my bed, watch my psychopath, fetch my slippers.