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Quotes About Principles

Freedom of the person under the protection of habeas corpus. I deem one of the essential principles of our government.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Every species of government has its specific principles. Ours perhaps are more peculiar than those of any other in the universe. It is a composition of the freest principles of the English constitution, with others derived from natural right and natural reason.
~ Thomas Jefferson
To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only. Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of it's benefits, than is done by it's abandoned prostitution to falsehood.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Principled, informed arguments are a sign of intellectual health and vitality in a democracy.
~ Thomas M. Nichols
Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil.
~ Thomas Mann
I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
~ Thomas Paine
Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed. Man cannot make principles he can only discover them.
~ Thomas Paine
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
~ Thomas Paine
I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
~ Thomas Paine
An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.
~ Thomas Paine
The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion. Not anything can be studied as a science, without our being in possession of the principles upon which it is founded; and as this is the case with Christian theology, it is therefore the study of nothing.
~ Thomas Paine
Man cannot make principles, he can only discover them.
~ Thomas Paine
Better fare hard with good men than feast it with bad.
~ Thomas Paine
An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot. Neither the Channel nor the Rhine will arrest its progress. It will march on the horizon of the world and it will conquer.
~ Thomas Paine
One of the great advantages of the American Revolution has been, that it led to a discovery of the principles, and laid open the imposition, of governments. All the revolutions till then had been worked within the atmosphere of a court, and never on the grand floor of a nation. The parties were always of the class of courtiers; and whatever was their rage for reformation, they carefully preserved the fraud of the profession.
~ Thomas Paine
Let it then be heard, and let man learn to feel that the true greatness of a nation is founded on principles of humanity, and not on conquest.
~ Thomas Paine
Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
~ Thomas Paine
It is not because the right principles have been violated, that they are to be abandoned.
~ Thomas Paine
love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
~ Thomas Paine
Every person of learning is finally his own teacher; the reason of which is, that principles, being of a distinct quality to circumstances, cannot be impressed upon the memory; their place of mental residence is the understanding, and they are never so lasting as when they begin by conception.
~ Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine wrote: Ã¢â'¬Å"It would be an error of the schools to teach astronomy, and all other sciences, and subjects, and philosophies on nature, as being our accomplishments only, they should be taught theologically, with reference to the being who is the author of them all: for all the principles of science are of divine origin. Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles; he can only discover them; and he ought to look through the discovery to the author of them all.
~ Thomas Paine
it is repugnant to the principles of representative government that a body should give power to itself.
~ Thomas Paine