Order marches with weighty and measured strides; disorder is always in a hurry.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be.
—Laozi (fl.6th Century BCE) Chinese Philosopher, Sage
We have art in order not to die of the truth.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.
—Henry Adams (1838–1918) American Historian, Man of Letters
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
When we walk the streets at night in safety, it does not strike us that this might be otherwise. This habit of feeling safe has become second nature, and we do not reflect on just how this is due solely to the working of special institutions. Commonplace thinking often has the impression that force holds the state together, but in fact its only bond is the fundamental sense of order which everybody possesses.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German Philosopher
Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control.
—Denis Diderot (1713–84) French Philosopher, Writer
His vocation was orderliness, which is the basis of creation. Accordingly, when a letter came, he would turn it over in his hands for a long time, gazing at it meditatively; then he would put it away in a file without opening it, because everything had its own time.
—Salvatore Satta (1902–75) Italian Jurist, Novelist
Good order is the foundation of all good things.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
When liberty destroys order, the hunger for order will destroy liberty.
—William C. Durant (1861–1947) American Industrialist
Order is Heaven’s first law; and this confessed, some are, and must be, greater than the rest, more rich, more wise; but who infers from hence that such are happier, shocks all common sense. Condition, circumstance, is not the thing; bliss is the same in subject or in king.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
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
Method will teach you to win time.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
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
It is best to do things systematically, since we are only humans, and disorder is our worst enemy.
—Hesiod (f.700 BCE) Greek Poet
Order is a lovely nymph, the child of beauty and wisdom; her attendants are comfort, neatness, and activity; her abode is the valley of happiness: she is always to be found when sought for, and never appears so lovely as when contrasted with her opponent, disorder.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
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
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
There is a time and place for everything.
—Common Proverb
Order is heaven’s first law.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
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
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
Order is a great person’s need and their true well being.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic
Fretfulness of temper will generally characterize those who are negligent of order.
—Hugh Blair (1718–1800) Scottish Preacher, Scholar, Critic
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
Neatness begets order; but from order to taste there is the same difference as from taste to genius, or from love to friendship.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) Swiss Theologian, Poet
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
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
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
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
Music creates order out of chaos: for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent, melody imposes continuity upon the disjointed, and harmony imposes compatibility upon the incongruous.
—Yehudi Menuhin (1916–99) American-born British Violinist, Conductor
There seems to be a kind of order in the universe, in the movement of the stars and the turning of the earth and the changing of the seasons, and even in the cycle of human life. But human life itself is almost pure chaos. Everyone takes his stance, asserts his own rights and feelings, mistaking the motives of others, and his own.
—Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980) American Short-Story Writer, Novelist
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
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
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
Routine is a ground to stand on, a wall to retreat to; we cannot draw on our boots without bracing ourselves against it.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
Let all things be done decently and in order.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
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
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
The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order. Life refuses to be embalmed alive. The more prolonged the halt in some unrelieved system of order, the greater the crash of the dead society.
—Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English Mathematician, Philosopher
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
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
Order is to arrangement what the soul is to the body, and what mind is to matter.
—Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French Writer, Moralist
The less of routine, the more of life.
—Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888) American Teacher, Writer, Philosopher
A place for everything, everything in its place.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Order is power.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic
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
As order is heavenly, where quiet is had,
So error is hell, or a mischief as bad.
—Thomas Tusser
We do not keep the outward form of order, where there is deep disorder in the mind.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright