History Quotes / JustFollowingOrders

->'''Finley:''' Frewen! What are you doing, have you gone crazy?!
->'''Frewen:''' They stole the gold from that sunken ship and ever reported it!
->'''Finley:''' I don't care what they did, you stop this slaughter now!

->''He inflicts an injury who orders it to be inflicted; but no guilt attaches to him who is obliged to obey.''

->''It is the right and duty of a commander to give orders and a subordinate is bound to obey these orders. Any other kind of relationship between commanders and their subordinates is entirely forbidden. The relationship between Stalin and Rokossovskiy was based upon the fact that Stalin gave the orders and that Rokossovskiy carried them out without question.''

->''Step by step, using bureaucratic language and dull legal terminology, the Soviet leadership, aided by their cowed Ukrainian counterparts, launched a famine within the famine, a disaster specifically targeted at Ukraine and Ukrainians.''

->''With few exceptions, the men who are running this Government are of a mentality that you and I cannot understand. Some of them are psychopathic cases and would ordinarily be receiving treatment somewhere. Others are exalted and in a frame of mind that knows no reason. The majority are woefully ignorant and unprepared for the tasks which they have to carry through every day. Those men in the party and in responsible positions who are really worth-while, and there are quite a number of these, are powerless because they have to follow the orders of superiors who are suffering from the abnormal psychology prevailing in the country.''

->''"Good soldiers follow orders."''

->''"[[UnwittingPawn A fine pack of puppets, you lot]]. Not a thought of your own, so eager to obey. Because obeying is so easy, hmm? [[NeverMyFault You're never responsible]] when you're ''only following orders''. And who would doubt what seems so obvious? Who bears [[ArcWords the courage to disobey]]? Precious few. Not one human in a thousand. [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness Now, my lambs]], [[HopelessBossFight to slaughter!]]"''

->''"The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."''

->''"Familiar, is it, Captain? That was the Nazi theme music at Nuremberg. 'We did not do, others did.' Or, 'Someone else did it. We didn't even know it was being done.' Or, 'We did it, but others told us to.'"''

->''"The distinguishing mark of a manifestly illegal order is that above such an order should fly, like a black flag, a warning saying: 'Prohibited!'"''

->''"[A]ll civilized nations recognize the principle that a subordinate is covered by the orders of his superiors."''

->''"Just following orders is an coward's excuse, Dorothea!"''

->''"A good way to get a decent person to do something horrible is to convince them that they're not responsible for their actions."''

->''"I was a soldier once. All my superiors thought I was brave. I wasn't. I mean, I never ran from a fight. Only because I was afraid my friends would see I was afraid. That's all I was, a coward. We followed orders no matter the orders.\\

And it's not about waiting for the gods to answer your prayers. It's not even about the gods. It's about you. Learning you have to answer your prayers yourself."''

->''Pulled into war to serve a vision\\

What about the men executing orders?''

->''I was Chairman Mao's dog. I bit whomever he asked me to bite.''

->''I wasn't trying to do anything to that Parks woman except do my job. She was in violation of the city codes, so what was I supposed to do? That damn bus was full and she wouldn't move back. I had my orders.''

->''The indictment knocked me on the head. First of all, I hand no idea at all about 90 per cent of the accusations in it. The crimes are horrible beyond belief, if they are true. Secondly, I don't see how they can fail to recognize a soldier's obligation to obey orders. That's the code I've lived by all my life.''

->''Jesus! There's enough evidence here to hang half the country!''

->''The fact that the defendant acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior shall not free him from responsibility, but may be considered in mitigation of punishment if the Tribunal determine that justice so requires.''

->''When I addressed you at the opening of this Trial, I remarked that there comes a time when a man must choose between his conscience and his leader. No one who chooses, as these men did, to abdicate their consciences in favor of this monster of their own creation can complain now if they are held responsible for complicity in what their monster did.''

->''Many of these men have made a mockery of the soldier's oath of obedience to military orders. When it suits their defence they say they had to obey; when confronted with Hitler's brutal crimes, which are shown to have been within their general knowledge, they say they disobeyed. The truth is they actively participated in all these crimes, or sat silent and acquiescent, witnessing the commission of crimes on a scale larger and more shocking than the world has ever had the misfortune to know. This must be said.''

->''Ve vere only obeying orders''\\
''And when we did these dreadful things we cried''\\
''Ve vere only obeying orders''\\
''But deep down we were always on your side''\\
''Ve vere only obeying orders''\\
''And we had to watch our goosestep you can bet''\\
''But we're smashing fellows really''\\
''We adore you people dearly''\\
''So please can't you forgive us and forget?''

-> ''Lord Mace, every day [of the siege] I have hated you and envied you and wished that you would die. And now I am to stand in judgement over you, and by all the old gods and new I do not wish to show you mercy. But what am I to stand in judgement for? What crimes are you guilty of? What charges are brought against you? That you served your king? That you laid siege to his enemies? I may hate you, Mace, but I cannot fault you.''

-->--'''Becker''', ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959:'' "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E74DeathsHeadRevisited Death's-Head Revisited]]"

-->-- ''Literature/TheWayOfKings'' (first book of ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'')

-->-- ''Series/DoctorWho'', "Bad Wolf"

-->-- ''Series/Halo2022'', "Contact"

-->-- '''Numerous clones''', ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars''

->'''Haven Hive customs official''': ...I'm just doing my job.\\
'''Schlock''': ''[in mock panic]'' [[YouJustHadToSayIt You did NOT just say that]]. When a firefighter pulls a baby out of a burning house and says "[[ThinkNothingOfIt I'm just doing my job]]," the guy gets a medal. ''[grabs the official]'' But when a tin-pot burro-crat says "I'm just doing my job," he gets ''filled'' with metal. Little pieces, moving very fast.

->'''Krupp''': All I do is carry out orders, carry out orders. I don't know what the idea is behind the order. Who it's for, or who it's against, or why. All I do is carry it out.\\
'''[=McCarthy=]''': You don't read enough.

->'''Hornet''': No one's ever dared to enter the Organization's base alone. Just who might you be?\\
'''Lu''': I'm the one who should be asking questions! Why did you kill Master Bell?\\
'''Hornet''': I just ''follow orders''. And I certainly ''don't'' question them.

->'''Black Dynamite''': You diabolical dick-shrinking motherfuckers! You were the leak all the time! And I bet you were behind Jimmy's death!\\
'''O'Leary''': Hey, man, I was just following orders. That's what a good soldier does, follow orders, unlike you.