Quotes About Principles

if you organize your family life to spend even ten or fifteen minutes a morning reading something that connects you with these timeless principles, it's almost guaranteed that you will make better choices during the day—in the family, on the job, in every dimension of life.

Stephen R. Covey

In a world of change, disruption, chaos, and relentless uncertainty, people crave an anchor point, a set of constructs to give them guidance in the face of turbulence. Covey believed that timeless principles do indeed exist, and that the search for them is not folly, but wisdom.

As we have observed, the shift from the Character Ethic to the Personality Ethic has drawn us away from the very roots that nourish true success and happiness.

Look to yourself. Be honest with yourself first—the roots of your problems are spiritual, and so are the root solutions. Build your character and your relationships on the bedrock of principles.

Stephen R. Covey

are some people who get so busy in church worship and projects that they become insensitive to the pressing human needs that surround them, contradicting the very precepts they profess to believe deeply. There are others who attend church less frequently or not at all but whose attitudes and behavior reflect a more genuine centering in the principles of the basic Judeo-Christian ethic.

Covey believed that timeless principles do indeed exist, and that the search for them is not folly, but wisdom

The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value.

Cecil B. DeMille observed of the principles contained in his monumental movie, The Ten Commandments, "It is impossible for us to break the law. We can only break ourselves against the law.

Integrity is, fundamentally, the value we place on ourselves.

Your vision is the end, the destination. Principles are the means, like the flight plan. Vision is who you really are and what you could become. Principles are those unalterable truths you feel so strongly about that you are willing to accept them as your own set of values.

Character Ethic taught that there are basic principles of effective living, and that people can only experience true success and enduring happiness as they learn and integrate these principles into their basic character.

We have conscience—a deep inner awareness of right and wrong, of the principles that govern our behavior, and a sense of the degree to which our thoughts and actions are in harmony with them. And we have independent will—the ability to act based on our self-awareness, free of all other influences. Even the most intelligent animals have none of these

deals with both vision and principle-based values. It's not enough to have values without vision—you want to be good, but you want to be good for something. On the other hand, vision without values can create a Hitler.

what makes religious folks religious today is not so much that they believe in Jesus' divinity or Buddhism's Four Noble Truths but that they hold certain moral positions on bedroom issues such as premarital sex, homosexuality, and abortion.

I'm a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.

Principles had a nasty way of interfering with results.

Buddhism is not a belief system. It's not about accepting certain tenets or believing a set of claims or principles. In fact, it's quite the opposite. It's about examining the world clearly and carefully, about testing everything and every idea. Buddhism is about seeing. It's about knowing rather than believing or hoping or wishing. It's also about not being afraid to examine anything and everything, including our own personal agendas.

Object-Oriented Design Heuristics (1996), Arthur Riel

But when it comes to solving problems, one of the best ways to start is by putting away your moral compass.

Each of us develops a moral compass (some stronger than others, to be sure) as we make our way through the world. This is for the most part a wonderful thing. Who wants to live in a world where people run around with no regard for the difference between right and wrong?

If morality represents how people would like the world to work, then economics shows how it actually does work.

Knowing there is a world that will outlive you, there are people whose well-being depends on how you live your life, affects the way you live your life, whether or not you directly experience those effects. You want to be the kind of person who has the larger view, who takes other people's interests into account, who's dedicated to the principles that you can justify, like justice, knowledge, truth, beauty and morality.