Quotes About Principles

Even while an atheist, he held some things sacred.

I could not do it. I would not do it. I sat back on my heels with the book in my hand with the light of the fire flickering and dying down and realized that not even in mortal danger could I bring myself to burn a book.

You don't get to be a favorite at a tyrant's court without beheading your principles every day.

A single man's imperfect conscience can never be superior to centuries of tradition.

That these girls avoid use of physical violence in resolving conflict, does not mean that these conflicts are resolved in meaningful and enduring ways. Girls might smile, give in, give up - and then continue the conflict behind their opponents' backs. Girls might also smile, give in, make fatal compromises, because their need to belong (or not to be excluded) is more important to them than sticking to their principles.

Let this then be one of our rules and principles concerning the gods, to which our poets and reciters will be expected to conform --that God is not the author of all things, but of good only.

On the other hand, I can't not defend her, since I can't help feeling it is wrong to stand idly by when I hear justice coming under attack, and not come to her defence for as long as I have breath in my body and a tongue in my head. So the best thing is to make what defence I can.

But the question is not quite so easy when we proceed to ask whether these principles are three or one; whether, that is to say, we learn with one part of our nature, are angry with another, and with a third part desire the satisfaction of our natural appetites; or whether the whole soul comes into play in each sort of action—to determine that is the difficulty. Yes, he said; there lies the difficulty. Then

parecerá su conducta poco conforme con estos principios, si no te fijas en que los hombres están poseídos del deseo de crearse un nombre y de adquirir una gloria inmortal en la posteridad; y que este deseo, más que el amor paterno, es el que les hace despreciar todos los peligros, comprometer su fortuna, resistir todas las fatigas y sacrificar su misma vida. ¿Piensas

The vulgar think the God by analogy to man and so worship Him in the form of the Gods. The learned think the God by analogy to principles and so worship Him in the form of Love or Truth. But the wises think the God not at all. They know that thought, which is finite, can only do violence to the God, who is infinite. It is enough, they say, that the God thinks them.

Alchemy is a science, but a science that acknowledges certain principles of magic. This. . . this is a mathematical expression of quintessence, Archimedes' fifth element, which binds all things together.

There is no divine judge. So we must supply for ourselves notions of good and ill.

When a man of ideals decides he is too old to risk everything for what he believes in, then he is no longer a man of ideals. He may no longer be a man at all.

I assure you the law isn't a line engraved in marble, immovable and unchangeable through the centuries. Rather...the law is like a string, fixed at both ends but with a great deal of play in it-very loose, the line of the law-so you can stretch it this way or that, rearrange the arc of it so you are always-short of the blantant theft or cold-blooded murder-safely on the right side.

Sometimes I am hampered by having a moral code, but I have it nonetheless, like a burr under the brain, with no way to pluck it out.

adapting the code of the Samurai to

life is short. nights are long, and principles without common sense are green gold - G Helen, Charming Grace

I don't believe in working in any location, in any environment, for any people with a lack of integrity.

Nie wiem, co to zasady, chyba ?e tak nazywamy prawidÅ'a, które przypisuje siÄ™ innym, a nie sobie. MyÅ›lÄ™ tak, a nie umiaÅ'bym siÄ™ powstrzyma? od czynienia inaczej.

After all your years climbing around in people's heads like a cranial janitor, do you think people know why they do things? People rationalize, they turn their delusions into something romantic that they can disguise as ethics or principles or ideals. People are selfish, Doctor- odiously, monstrously, but in so small and paltry a monstrousness that we barely notice it.

With all our sophistication, the remarkable fact is that the Ten Commandments are more or less all we need.

The Ten Commandments are there to warn all of us that, with very few exceptions, such as the immediate saving of innocent life, no cause is more important than truth-telling. The Ten Commandments are the greatest list of instructions ever devised for creating a good society. But such a society cannot be created or maintained if it is not based on truth.

Good societies can survive people doing immoral things. But a good society can not survive if it calls immoral things moral.

So now thee has doomed thy kinsman, repudiated thy father, and caused me to betray my principles. What next?!" "Oh, bloody hell," he said, and grabbed her arms, pulled her roughly to him, and kissed her. He let go and stepped back quickly, leaving her bug-eyed and gasping. The