It is by imitation, far more than by precept, that we learn everything; and what we learn thus, we acquire not only more efficiently, but more pleasantly. This forms our manners, our opinions, our lives. - Edmund Burke
RITE, n. A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept or custom, with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out of it. - Ambrose Bierce
There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it. - Denis Diderot
The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt. - Rene Descartes
Examples is more forcible than precept. People look at my six days in the week to see what I mean on the seventh.
Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life - in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color. - Seneca
The path of precept is long, that of example short and effectual. - Seneca
Precept upon precept; line upon line: here a little, and there a little. - Bible
The more profoundly we study this wonderful book [the Bible], and the more closely we observe its divine precept, the better citizens we will become and the higher will be our destiny as a nation. - William McKinley
It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done. - Samuel Smiles