Quotes About Principles

Glory belongs to the act of being constant to something greater than yourself, to a cause, to your principles, to the people on whom you rely and who rely on you

isn't religious but she does have an immutable sense of right and wrong and

Giving a damn and doing what is right are rewards in themselves.

The French people are very democratical in their tendencies, but they must have a visible type of hero-worship, and they find it in the bearer of that name Napoleon. That name is the only tradition dear to them, and it is deeply dear. That a man bearing it, and appealing at the same time to the whole people upon democratical principles, should be answered from the heart of the people, should neither astonish, nor shame, nor enrage anybody.

I had a longer battle to fight, on the matter of this vow, than any since my marriage, and had some scruples at last of taking advantage of the pure goodness which induced him to yield to my wishes; but I did, because I hate to seem ungracious and unkind to people; and human beings, besides, are better than their books, than their principles, and even than their everyday actions, sometimes.

It paid to understand the politics, and for all their prickles the blood had long learned the value of shared information.

He always -- or always tried -- to do things from larger principles, not out of what he felt about people, or any particular people, but what he thought people ought to feel about -- humanity. He wasn't really interested in people singly or personally.

Hardly anyone understands the principles behind magic,"scoffed Betony. "It's too difficult.

We have trodden underfoot the principles of Democracy for the sake of the loftier principles of Social Revolution," Trotsky said. "We are against oppression, but we will not yield our power without a ruthless struggle.

Like many high-minded people, Wilson, when faced with opposition that he considered evil but which refused to yield to his arguments, felt no compunction about simply crossing his arms and refusing to play the game.

Dialectic teaches us that contradiction is the essence of the false, just as consistency with first principles is the essence of the true.

Bacon's curiosity makes him sound amazingly modern, and in many ways he was. But his writings look back as much as they look forward, and the figure to whom he owes his greatest debt is without doubt Aristotle, whom he discovered through his admiration for Grosseteste.5 Aristotle's works unlocked for Bacon a world of scientific investigation, above all a method of exploring the wonders of nature and understanding its underlying principles

Christianity no longer just summed up ancient civilization's highest aims, as Justin and Clement had argued. It now had the power to save that civilization, Origen proclaimed, by bringing the highest moral principles down to earth right here.

America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other."8

the version of technology we live with most closely resembles the one that Scots such as James Watt organized and perfected. It rests on certain basic principles that the Scottish Enlightenment enshrined: common sense, experience as our best source of knowledge, and arriving at scientific laws by testing general hypotheses through individual experiment and trial and error.

Politics in modern society, then, must involve a tension between two conflicting, but complementary principles: liberty, which preserves individuals, and authority, which preserves society.

The law is a means to an end—and what that end is depends on human desires and needs. But somewhere, some basic principles have to stick.

The law is a means to an end—and what that end is depends on human desires and needs. But somewhere, some basic principles have to stick. Somewhere there has to be a firm base on which everything else can rest; otherwise, the law becomes the plaything of power, not its master.

The military masters of Germany have filled our unsuspecting communities with vicious spies and conspirators and have sought to corrupt the opinion of our people . . . [These persons] seek to undermine the Government with false professions of loyalty to its principles."23

The dichotomy between sexuality and spirituality can only take root in countries founded on puritanical principles—countries that cannot laugh at the Devil because they would be mocking God, too.

Every branch of human knowledge, if traced up to its source and final principles, vanishes into mystery.

Morality is the weakness of the mind.

The hallucinations are innumerable. That's what has always been the matter with me, in fact: no belief in history, obliviousness of principles. I shall say no more about this: poets and visionaries would be jealous. I am a thousand times the richest, let's be as miserly as the sea.

Righteousness is easy in retrospect.