Quotes About Principle

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.

was a fundamental principle of the Gradgrind philosophy that everything was to be paid for. Nobody was ever on any account to give anybody anything, or render anybody help without purchase. Gratitude was to be abolished, and the virtues springing from it were not to be. Every inch of the existence of mankind, from birth to death, was to be a bargain across a counter. And if we didn't get to Heaven that way, it was not a politico-economical place, and we had no business there.

To do a great right, you may do a little wrong; and you may take any means which the end to be attained will justify.

Let no man turn aside, even so slightly, from the broad path of honor, on the plausible pretence that he is justified by the goodness of his end. All good ends can be worked out by good means. Those that cannot, are bad; and may be counted so at once, and left alone.

Altogether, the Old Bailey, at that date, was a choice illustration of the precept, that "Whatever is right;" an aphorism that would be as final as it is lazy, did it not include the troublesome consequence, that nothing that ever was, was wrong.

The great principle of out-of-door relief is, to give the paupers exactly what they don't want; and then they get tired of coming.

But if you were free today, tomorrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless girl, you who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain: or, choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance and regret would surely follow?

It was a fundamental principle of the Gradgrind philosophy that everything was to be paid for.

Pleasure, remember, is among other things the feeling we get from satisfying a need. The more powerful the need, the greater the pleasure. To follow this principle requires, first, accepting that our needs are valid and even beautiful. And not just our needs, but our desires as well, coming as they do from unmet needs.

The main thing I believe in is freedom.

Do what is right according to your beliefs no matter what the cost.

Go put your creed into your deed...

My dear Arnold, we all hope that you have before you a distinguished political career. You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.

Ethics and Logic should be the most generally studied, because all practise them whether they have studied them or not.

Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons!

The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom...

To-day we reverently thank the abolitionists. Earth has produced no grander men, no nobler women. They were the real philanthropists, the true patriots... heroes. He loves his country best who strives to make it best. Mere politicians wish the country to do something for them, true patriots desire to do something for their country... [P]atriotism without principle is the prejudice of birth — the animal attachment to place.

Sooner or later...one has to take sides. If one is to remain human.

Petrie. I stood up for a principle I believe in. If the whole of America has to die for that principle, then I still believe it's worth it.' 'Even if the principle kills the very people it's supposed to protect?' Kenneth Garunisch turned away. 'Principles are everything, Dr. Petrie. Without principles, we cease to be living beings.

Don't trust the right thing, done for the wrong reason. The 'why' of a thing—that's the foundation.

If we will not have inscripturated morality from God as our sociopolitical standard, we have no principle to protect us from those who wish to play god.

Interest yourself in public affairs as a duty of citizenship, but do not surrender your faith to those who discredit and debase politics by scoffing at sentiment and principle, and whose political activity consists in attempts to gain popular support by cunning devices and shrewd manipulation.

Mature human do not denigrate (defame) or cherist (praise) an idea in order to feed personal worthwhile.

Dharma, the word at the heart of the epic, is in fact untranslatable. Duty, goodness, justice, law and custom all have something to do with it, but they all fall short.