Quotes About Principles

Hope that justice will be done to those brave men who stood up for their convictions.

The longing to behold this pre-established harmony [of phenomena and theoretical principles] is the source of the inexhaustible patience and perseverance with which Planck has devoted himself ... The state of mind which enables a man to do work of this kind is akin to that of the religious worshiper or the lover; the daily effort comes from no deliberate intention or program, but straight from the heart.

I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves—such an ethical basis I call more proper for a herd of swine.

Cercare di diventare non un uomo di successo, ma un uomo di valore

The highest principles for our aspirations and judgments are given to us in the Jewish-Christian religious tradition.

It is abhorrent to me when a fine intelligence is paired with an unsavory character

But the nature of the universe is such that the ends never justify the means. On the contrary, the means always determine the end.

The end cannot justify the means, for the simple and obvious reason that the means employed determine the nature of the ends produced.

Good ends, as I have frequently to point out, can be achieved only by the employment of appropriate means. The end cannot justify the means, for the simple and obvious reason that the means employed determine the nature of the ends produced.

Half at least of all morality is negative and consists in keeping out of mischief.

As though you could use violent, unjust means and achieve peace and justice! Means determine ends; and must be like the ends proposed. Means intrinsically different from the ends proposed achieve ends like themselves, not like those they were meant to achieve.

Moral education, ought never, in any circumstances, to be rational.

La educación moral, que no debe nunca ser racional en modo alguno.

Moral education, which ought never, in any circumstances, to be rational

Or consider another field where one can use games to implant an understanding of basic principles. All scientific thinking is in terms of probability. The old eternal verities are merely a high degree of likeliness; the immutable laws of nature are just statistical averages. How does one get these profoundly unobvious notions into children's heads? By playing roulette with them, by spinning coins and drawing lots. By teaching them all kinds of games with cards and boards and dice.

All that is needed is money and a candidate who can be coached to look sincere. Political principles and plans for specific action have come to lose most of their importance. The personality of the candidate, the way he is projected by the advertising experts, are the things that really matter.

Those who stand for nothing fall for everything.

There are so many ways of falling off the high moral ground you've carefully built up for yourself. Moral ground is like that—slippery at the edges.

The trouble with the world today, she thought, was that people were not prepared to stand up to bad behaviour.

The problem, of course, was that people did not seem to understand the difference between right and wrong. They needed to be reminded about this, because if you left it to them to work out for themselves, they would never bother. They would just find out what was best for them, and then they would call that the right thing. That's how most people thought. Precious

The trouble with having a conscience, she said to herself, is that it never sleeps.

Moral codes were not designed to be selective, nor indeed were they designed to be questioned. You could not say that you would observe this prohibition but not that. I shall not commit theft -- certainly not -- but adultery is another matter: wrong for other people, but not for me.

Morality is for everyone and that is what

There's no excuse," said Isabel firmly. "Biscuits are trivial, but lies are not.