Quotes on Principles

When I need to identify rebels, I look for men with principles

When we go to the Bible we should keep in mind that the basic principles of the Bible are taught by God, but written down by human beings deprived of modern day knowledge. So there is some fallibility in the writings of the Bible. But the basic principles are applicable to my life and I don't find any conflict among them.

Education is a fundamental principle of what made America a success. We can't afford to throw any young people away.

Life is indeed terribly complicated—to a man who has lost his principles.

emotion is first of all and in principle an accident

A man far oftener appears to have a decided character from persistently following his temperament than from persistently following his principles.

The American foreign policy trauma of the sixties and seventies was caused by applying valid principles to unsuitable conditions.

I begin with the principle that all men are bores. Surely no one will prove himself so great a bore as to contradict me in this.

We repeat again: strength of character does not consist solely in having powerful feelings, but in maintaining one’s balance in spite of them. Even with the violence of emotion, judgment and principle must still function like a ship’s compass, which records the slightest variations however rough the sea.

The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings. Viewed by this light it becomes a coherent scheme, and not the monstrous maze the laity are apt to think it. Let them but once clearly perceive that its grand principle is to make business for itself at their expense, and surely they will cease to grumble.

All religions are good 'in principle' - but unfortunately this abstract Good has only rarely prevented their practitioners from behaving like bastards.

Once I thought that to be human was the highest aim a man could have, but I see now that it was meant to destroy me. To-day I am proud to say that I am inhuman, that I belong not to men and governments, that I have nothing to do with creeds and principles. I have nothing to do with the creaking machinery of humanity - I belong to the earth!

Most men and women lead lives at the worst so painful, at the best so monotonous, poor and limited that the urge to escape, the longing to transcend themselves if only for a few moments, is and has always been one of the principal appetites of the soul.

Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil.

My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.

From a political point of view, there is but one principle, the sovereignty of man over himself. This sovereignty of myself over myself is called Liberty

I understand why we do that now. It’s a help, not a threat. It’s something to remind you how important words are. Ideas are important. Principles are important. Words are important. Your word is the most important of all. Your word is who you are.

Marquise de Merteuil: I've distilled every thing to one single principle: win or die.

As a matter of principle, I never attend the first annual anything.

How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.

[...] to introduce into the philosophy of war itself a principle of moderation would be an absurdity