It is best to do things systematically, since we are only humans, and disorder is our worst enemy.
—Hesiod (f.700 BCE) Greek Poet
However fiercely opposed one may be to the present order, an old respect for the idea of order itself often prevents people from distinguishing between order and those who stand for order, and leads them in practice to respect individuals under the pretext of respecting order itself.
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French Actor, Drama Theorist
Order marches with weighty and measured strides; disorder is always in a hurry.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must cultivate our personal life; and to cultivate our personal life, we must first set our hearts right.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.
—Henry Adams (1838–1918) American Historian, Man of Letters
A place for everything, everything in its place.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Good order is the foundation of all good things.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
For the world was built in order
Around the atoms march in tune;
Rhyme the pipe, and Time the warder,
The sun obeys them, and the moon.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
There are persons who are never easy unless they are putting your books and papers in order—that is according to their notions of the matter—and hiding things, lest they should be lost, where neither the owner nor anybody else can find them. If anything is left where you want it, it is called litter. There is a pedantry in housewifery, as well as in the gravest concerns. One complained that whenever his maid-servant had been in his library, he could not get comfortably to work again, for several days.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
You ask what is the use of classification, arrangement, systemization? I answer you: order and simplification are the first steps toward the mastery of a subject-the actual enemy is the unknown.
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German Novelist, Short Story Writer, Social Critic, Philanthropist, Essayist
Set all things in their own peculiar place, and know that order is the greatest grace.
—John Dryden (1631–1700) English Poet, Literary Critic, Playwright
The order of the world is always right—such is the judgment of God. For God has departed, but he has left his judgment behind, the way the Cheshire Cat left his grin.
—Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French Sociologist, Philosopher
There is a time and place for everything.
—Common Proverb
The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre, observe degree, priority and place, insisture, course, proportion, season, form, office, and custom, in all line of order.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
We have art in order not to die of the truth.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
The highest order of mind is accused of folly, as well as the lowest. Nothing is thoroughly approved but mediocrity. The majority has established this, and it fixes its fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order;—poetry = the best words in the best order.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
Order means light and peace, inward liberty and free command over one’s self; order is power.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic
Every great man exhibits the talent of organization or construction, whether it be in a poem, a philosophical system, a policy, or a strategy. And without method there is no organization nor construction.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
There is no course of life so weak and Scottish as that which is ordered by orders, method, and discipline.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.
—A. A. Milne (1882–1956) British Humorist, Playwright, Children’s Writer
He who has no taste for order, will be often wrong in his judgment, and seldom considerate or conscientious in his actions.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) Swiss Theologian, Poet
Order is heaven’s first law.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
If we can, when we have established individual discipline, arrange the children, sending each one to his own place, in order, trying to make them understand the idea that thus placed they look well, and that it is a good thing to be thus placed in order, that it is a good and pleasing arrangement in the room, this ordered and tranquil adjustment of theirs—then their remaining in their places, quiet and silent, is the result of a species of lesson, not an imposition. To make them understand the idea, without calling their attention too forcibly to the practice, to have them assimilate a principle of collective order—that is the important thing.
—Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian Physician, Educator
Order is to arrangement what the soul is to the body, and what mind is to matter.
—Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French Writer, Moralist
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 body, so is order to all things.
—Robert South (1634–1716) English Theologian, Preacher
There is a quality even meaner than outright ugliness or disorder, and this meaner quality is the dishonest mask of pretended order, achieved by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist and to be served.
—Jane Jacobs (1916–2006) Canadian Urbanologist, Author
Be regular and orderly in your life like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.
—Gustave Flaubert (1821–80) French Novelist, Playwright, Short Story Writer