“Have good self-discipline, Gregory,” my physician-dad frequently reminded me during my Monmouth Beach youth. “There is very little it can’t overcome.”

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Dad proudly heralded himself as a person of stout self-discipline. He admitted that he never would have made it the way he did in life being undisciplined.

First found during rigorous medical school studies in the early 1940s, dad once told me that after employing the discipline needed to get his MD degree, he thought “there wasn’t much that could stop me.”

Discipline for him instilled confidence, which he used to construct a truly meaningful 50-year career as a medical doctor.

“The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own.”
—Albert Ellis

I can’t say that dad was able to do a great job of transferring his concept of discipline into all his children’s lives — with some nice exceptions. Perhaps if he explained it more to his children (dad was a doer, not a talker) we might have had more success with it. But then, that’s probably undisciplined thinking.

Anyway, here some good quotes about discipline:

• “Rule your mind or it will rule you.”
—Horace

• “What lies in our power to do, lies in our power not to do.”
—Aristotle

• “Circumstances are beyond human control, but our conduct is in our own power.”
—Benjamin Disraeli

• “The surest test of discipline is its absence.”
—Clara Barton

• “When a person is sufficiently motivated, discipline will take care of itself.”
—Alexander Paterson

• “Discipline yourself, and others won’t need to.”
—John Wooden

• “Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.”
—Jim Rohn

• “Discipline is the soul of an army.”
—George Washington

• “Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace.”
—Mike Ditka

• “The discipline of desire is the background of character.”
—John Locke

• “No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.”
—Seneca

• “The secret of success is constancy of purpose.”
—Benjamin Disraeli

• “A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.”
—Lao Tzu

• “Discipline is wisdom and vice versa.”
—M. Scott Peck

• “The first and best victory is to conquer self.”
—Plato

• “Self-discipline is like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.”
—Daniel Goldstein

• “I only achieved success in my life through self-discipline. I applied it until my wish and my will became one.”
—Nikola Tesla