Quotes About Principles

The cult of moral grayness is a revolt against moral values.

I loathe your ideals because I know no worse injustice than the giving of the undeserved.

Morality is a code of black and white. When and if men attempt a compromise, it is obvious which side will necessarily lose and which will necessarily profit.

My greatest personal mistake is ever to allow a word or moment that "doesn't count," i.e., that I do not refer to my own basic principles. Every word, every action, every moment counts. (This is the pattern on which everybody makes mistakes [or] becomes irrational — not relating their one action or one conviction to another.

To irrational principles, one cannot be loyal. Ideas that are not derived from reality cannot be consistently practiced in reality. --as quoted by Leonard Peikoff in Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand

The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.

the best is a matter of standards—and I set my own standards.

I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who does not sacrifice his love or his values.

But, in fact, a person's sexual choice is the result and sum of their fundamental convictions. Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life.

The best is a matter of standards

Hence the sterile, uninspiring futility of a great many theoretical discussions of ethics, and the resentment which many people feel towards such discussions: moral principles remain in their minds as floating abstractions, offering them a goal they cannot grasp and demanding that they reshape their souls in its image, thus leaving them with a burden of undefinable moral guilt.

And no one rose to ask the question: Good?-by what standard? John Galt

What subjectivism is in the realm of ethics, collectivism is in the realm of politics. Just as the notion that anything I do is right because I chose to do it, is not a moral principle, but a negation of morality--so the notion that anything society does is right because society chose to do it, is not a moral principle, but a negation of moral principles an the banishment of morality from social issues.

Those who start by saying: 'It is selfish to pursue your own wishes, you must sacrifice them to the wishes of others'—end up by saying: 'It is selfish to uphold your convictions, you must sacrifice them to the convictions of others.

A rational man never distorts or corrupts his own standards...in order to appeal to the irrationality, dishonesty or stupidity of others.

She thought of the world's code that worshipped white lies as an act of mercy—she felt a stab of revulsion against that code..

Mrs. Martin, I happen to be committed to a course of action. That does not mean I don't care whether the action is good or bad.

I should acquaint the reader with the basic principles of the mythology I adhered to then. I believed . . . that inanimate objects were no less fallible than people. They, too, could be forgetful. And, if you had enough patience, you could catch them by surprise.

There are many methods of trance induction, but all seem to function on one or more of four related principles: relaxation, sensory restriction, rhythm, and boredom.

As an engineer, he knew that a bucket-load of philosophical principles wasn't worth a grain of good hard fact.

There are three constants in life... Change, Choice and Principles.

No enterprise can become or rains truly great without a core set of principles to preserve to build upon

In my interviews with World War II veterans, they sometimes tell me that the reason they fought was they had learned as children the difference between right and wrong and they didn't want to live in a world in which wrong prevailed, so they fought.

The universe is a machine governed by principles or laws – laws that can be understood by the human mind.