PRINCIPLE QUOTES

quotations about principles

Principles quote

Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divides States and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

"Resistance to Civil Government"

Tags: Henry David Thoreau


It is, methinks, worthy the curiosity of a nice observer of human nature, to watch the course of a principle in the mind, and mark its various effects; now cherishing a virtue, now a vice; now establishing order, and now inclining to irregularity: to trace it like a stream from a source, through all its windings; each of which, those who see but a part, distinguish by a different name, and suppose to be fed by a different spring.

FULKE GREVILLE

Maxims, Characters and Reflections

Tags: Fulke Greville


A principle that can't bear being laughed at, frowned on, and cold-shouldered, isn't worthy of the name.

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

An Old-Fashioned Girl

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Expedients are for the hour, but principles are for the ages.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit

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Let us cling to our principles, as the mariner clings to his last plank when night and tempest close around him.

ADAM WOOLEVER

attributed, Day's Collacon


He that always gives way to others will end in having no principles of his own.

AESOP

Fables

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A person could resist popular belief and stand up for personal principles, and though there may be consequences, not everything would necessarily be lost. In fact, something important might be gained, if only within oneself.

JEAN M. AUEL

The Mammoth Hunters

Tags: Jean M. Auel


The few men who think in common with us are much more necessary to us than the whole of the rest of mankind; they give strength and tone to our principles.

GEORGE FORSTER

attributed, Beautiful Thoughts from German and Spanish Authors


But a war, a strike for a principle is never a mistake, never odious, never unwise on the part of those who contend for the principle, for the right, for the truth.

ANONYMOUS

The Station Agent, January 1894


Obey the principles without being bound by them.

BRUCE LEE

Bruce Lee: Artist of Life

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But a principle is only true if it be universal. If I believe in my own judgment, I am bound to believe in the judgments of every one else. If I hold my own spirit to have in it the criteria of truth, I must allow that the same criteria exist in every other spirit of the present times, of the past and of the future. Either conscience is the expression of truth or it is not. If not, we can no more trust to reason or primary beliefs, we cannot affirm anything or know anything. But if it is, then it is so for every one, and I have no more right to contradict its expression in other men than I have to contradict it in myself.

SABINE BARING-GOULD

Christianity

Tags: truth


The problem was not that they failed to find these principles written upon their hearts, but that they could not bring themselves to attend closely to the inscription.

J. BUDZISZEWSKI

What We Can't Not Know: A Guide


We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles.

MARK TWAIN

More Maxims of Mark

Tags: Mark Twain


Principles don't change, people do.

CARLOS WALLACE

Life Is Not Complicated -- You Are


A precedent embalms a principle.

BENJAMIN DISRAELI

speech on the Expenditures of the Country, February 22, 1848

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There are ultimately only two possible adjustments to life; one is to suit our lives to principles; the other is to suit principles to our lives. If we do not live as we think, we soon begin to think as we live.

FULTON J. SHEEN

"Memoirs of Venerable Fulton John Sheen", Universal One Church, February 5, 2016


Let a ruler base his government upon virtuous principles, and he will be like the pole-star, which remains steadfast in its place, while all the host of stars turn towards it.

CONFUCIUS

The Wisdom of Confucius

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A man with honest principles and a good conscience, is invulnerable against the attacks of treachery and deception.

JAMES ELLIS

attributed, Day's Collacon


Principles have no real force except when one is well fed.

MARK TWAIN

Adam's Diary

Tags: Mark Twain


Even an evil man can have principles--he can be true to his own evil, which is not always so easy.

NORMAN MAILER

The Paris Review, winter-spring 1964

Tags: Norman Mailer