Quotes About Principle

The refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil. The Tragedy of our time is that those who still believe in honesty lack fire and conviction, while those who believe in dishonesty are full of passionate conviction.

There is more simplicity in the man who eats caviar on impulse than in the man who eats grapenuts on principle.

My country, right or wrong, is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, My mother, drunk or sober.

To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.

This life is filled with inescapable moral compromises. We should do what we can to avoid the easy ones.

True conviction is believing something to be right even after it becomes disadvantageous to you.

If loss makes you doubt your belief in justice, then you never truly believed in justice at all.

The Gilded Age was much like today; the rich went on a rampage, gutting, by fair means or foul, any institution or principle that protected ordinary people against organized greed. At the end of it, the majority of the American people insisted, against enormous opposition, that the government's powers, structure, and values be modernized to reflect the interests of ordinary people rather than solely those of the wealthy.

Arthur Schlesinger admits that JFK "succumbed to the fake omniscience of insiders". Prolonged immersion in the self-contained, self-justifying world of clandestinity and deception erodes the reality principle.

You know how we say in Wisconsin: 'Do right and fear no man; don't write and fear no woman!

Truth, honesty, integrity, he said. "And loyalty. Above truth, honesty, and integrity, I would demand loyalty. Loyalty above all. You have to swear an oath." "I can never put loyalty above truth honesty and integrity. . . don't demand loyalty over truth. Don't ever do that.

If they were right, there was an absence of conflict not only over the specific case of cosmology but, in principle, over anything else in which scientific and biblical statements appeared to be in contradiction. A "conflict thesis" would have seemed untenable because there was nothing to fight about.

Doug Swieteck,' Mr. Ferris said, 'do you know the basic principle of physical science?' A trick? 'No,' I said, sort of slow. 'The basic principle of physical science is this: no two bodies can occupy the same space at the same time. Do you understand that?' 'I think so,' I said. 'Do you understand what the principle means?' I shook my head. 'It means, Doug Swieteck, that in this class, you are not your brother.

Obedience is required conformity. Responsibility is voluntary conformity. Obedience is submission to a person. Responsibility is submission to a principle.

Acknowledge your critics, but do what's right.

The inequality of effort for results is everywhere in your life if you will simply look for it. And if you apply this principle, it will unlock the success you seek in anything that matters to you.

If we accord equal inherent value to all humans, irrespective of their characteristics, and we deny that same value to animals, then our failure to apply the principle of equal consideration is arbitrary and unjustified.

Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is one of the most misunderstood parts of quantum theory, a doorway through which all sorts of charlatans and purveyors of tripe8 can force their philosophical musings.

True independence and freedom can only exist in doing what's right.

There is no mystery about my style. My movements are simple, direct and non-classical. The extraordinary part of it lies in its simplicity. Every movement in Jeet Kune-Do is being so of itself. There is nothing artificial about it. I always believe that the easy way is the right way.

True freedom is where an individual's thoughts and actions are in alignment with that which is true, correct, and of honor - no matter the personal price.

It is better to lose everything you have to keep the balance of justice level, than to live a life of petty privilege devoid of true freedom.

There is no conservative party left in Washington. Conservative thinkers and writers who were to be the watchdogs of orthodoxy have been as vigilant in policing party deviations from principle as was Cardinal Law in collaring the predator-priests of the Boston archdiocese.

The virtues, like the Muses, are always seen in groups. A good principle was never found solitary in any breast.