Quotation Explorer - 'Principle'

Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act.
Where principle is involved, be deaf to expediency.
A useful definition of liberty is obtained only by seeking the principle of liberty in the main business of human life, that is to say, in the process by which men educate their responses and learn to control their environment. - Walter Lippmann
The time has come for all good men to rise above principle.
...in principle, one can predict everything in the universe solely from physical laws. Thus, the long-standing 'first cause' problem intrinsic in cosmology has been finally dispelled. - Li Zhi Fang
The principle virtue of anyone who made an important invention is curious persistence. - Debasish Mridha
Never let the principle of what you believe in become more important than the person. - Shannon L. Alder
The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form. - Jefferson Davis
And read… read all the time… read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of life. - David McCullough Jr.
Ethics are so annoying. I avoid them on principle. - Darby Conley
The right to vote is a *consequence*, not a primary cause, of a free social system -- and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voters' power; unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny. - Ayn Rand
Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. That is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil. - Albert Schweitzer
It seems logical that he who supports total war in principle cannot complain of a war against civilians. - John Hersey
Compassion is a fundamental principle of meditation. Meditation is not a narcissistic, self-interested path. It provides the foundation for love, integrity, compassion, respect and sensitivity (Feldman, 1998, p.2). - Christina Feldman
Truth and Honesty: this principle could bring about healing and harmony in any nation. - Sunday Adelaja
A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice. - Thomas Paine
Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country's most urgent needs. - Maximilien Robespierre
The first principle of life is love. The second principle is kindness. The third principle is compassion. The fourth principle is trust. The firth principle is integrity. - Debasish Mridha
The bird dares to break the shell, then the shell breaks open and the bird can fly openly. This is the simplest principle of success. You dream, you dare and and you fly. - Israelmore Ayivor
Propose to any englishman any principle, or any instrument, however admirable, and you will observe that the whole effort of the english mind is directed to find a difficulty, defect or an impossibility in it.
The most important principle of divine philosophy is the oneness of the world of humanity, the unity of mankind, the bond conjoining East and West, the tie of love which blends human hearts.
We make time for what we truly value. We build habits and routines around the things that really matter to us. This is an important principle to understand as we seek to build our lives around the gospel. Do you want a cross centered life? A cross centered life is made up of cross centered days. - C.J. Mahaney
We all feel that the opposite of our own highest principle must be purely destructive, deadly, and evil. We refuse to endow it with any positive life-force; hence we avoid and fear it. - C.G. Jung
Economic and financial conversion is actually attainable, thanks to this principle of truth and honesty. - Sunday Adelaja
Because what could be more Casablanca? Suddenly Harlow saw that what she’d always wanted was a man of principle. A man of action. A domestic terrorist. Every girl’s dream, if she can’t have a vampire. (Chapter four pg 202) - Karen Joy Fowler
AIDS would have claimed fewer lives if we had publicly recommended what I wish to call ‘The Presumption of Sickness,’ i.e., the principle that whomever we are about to sleep with is HIV-positive until proven HIV-negative. - Mokokoma Mokhonoana
It is better to be defeated on principle than to win on lies.
True gentleness is founded on a sense of what we owe to him who made us and to the common nature which we all share. It arises from reflection on our own failings and wants, and from just views of the condition and duty of man. It is native feeling heightened and improved by principle. - Hugh Blair
Fairness as a principle doesn't work if applied only in response to demand; it must be safeguarded and promoted even when its beneficiaries don't realize what they are missing. - Linda Babcock & Sara Laschever
The first principle of freedom is that we are responsible for our actions. - Marty Rubin
If "doctor" means "master teacher," then I think teaching in K-12 for 10 years deserves said title. Our practicum is potent and our expertise is in the service of children. In fact, I might start calling myself Dr. Vilson on principle. Fight me - Jose Luis Vilson
Your principle should be to see everything and say nothing. The world changes so rapidly that if you want to get on you cannot afford to align yourself with any person or point of view. - Khushwant Singh
My feeling is this whole country is founded on the principle of 'if you are not hurting anyone, and you're not fucking with someone else's shit, and you are paying your taxes, you should be able to just do what you want to do.' It's the freedom and the independence. - Adam Carolla
The principle of giving should become a mandate for action for the Christians of the last days - Sunday Adelaja
After establishing anything as the absolute truth, its’ conclusion is reached. It doesn’t have to be established as the truth again. What is proven as the eternal established truth for past, present and future is known as the Principle [Siddhant]. - Dada Bhagwan
When a man says he approves of something in principle, it means he hasn't the slightest intention of putting it into practice. - Otto von Bismarck
I am a man of principle, and one of my basic principles is flexibility.
Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces? - Frédéric Bastiat
All actions start with emotions and in this principle we find the key to change - Daniel Marques
Reconciliation should be accompanied by justice, otherwise it will not last. While we all hope for peace it shouldn't be peace at any cost but peace based on principle, on justice.
Decided knowledge is not called ‘knowledge’. Decided knowledge is called Principle. - Dada Bhagwan
As long as human labor power, and, consequently, life itself, remain articles of sale and purchase, of exploitation and robbery, the principle of the sacredness of human life remains a shameful lie, uttered with the object of keeping the oppressed slaves in their chains. - Leon Trotsky
Religion isn't bad, it's our consciousness relativity to religion. There's a reason Mahatma Ghandi said "I like your Christ, I don't like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." The principle is that religion doesn't make 'you'. 'You' make your 'religion'. - Matthew Donnelly
Love has no ad hoc principle; it is universal. - Debasish Mridha
Man, as a form, bears within him the eternal principle of being, and by economic movement along his endless path his form is also transformed, just as everything that lives in nature was transformed in him. - Kazimir Malevich
The Fine Arts are five in number: Painting, Music, Poetry, Sculpture, and Architecture--whereof the principle branch is Confectionery. - Marie-Antoine Carême
Nobody ever did anything very foolish except from some strong principle. - William Melbourne
The principle that the end justifies the means is in individualist ethics regarded as the denial of all morals. In collectivist ethics it becomes necessarily the supreme rule. - Friedrich Hayek
The principle of democracy is a recognition of the sovereign, inalienable rights of man as a gift from God, the Source of law. - Fulton J. Sheen
The entire Nazi war machine was only possible because of past, present and future violations of the non aggression principle (achievable only through government). - Stefan Molyneux
The real opposition is that between the ego-bound man, whose existence is structured by the principle of having, and the free man, who has overcome his egocentricity. - Erich Fromm
Let the ‘why not’ philosophy be your life principle! - Mehmet Murat ildan
There is more simplicity in the man who eats caviar on impulse than in the man who eats Grape-Nuts on principle. - G.K. Chesterton
As a matter of principle, I never attend the first annual anything. - George Carlin
Don't flail against the world, use it. Flexibility is the operative principle in the art of war.
Nothing is gained, everything is lost, by subordinating principle to expediency. - William Lloyd Garrison
Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships. - Stephen R. Covey
In my experience, there is only one motivation, and that is desire. No reasons or principle contain it or stand against it. - Jane Smiley
this terror then and drakness of mind must be dispelled not by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of day, but by the aspect and the law of nature; the warp whose design we shall begin with this first principle, nothing is ever gotten out of nothing by divine power. - Titus Lucretius Carus
At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love - Martin Luther King Jr.
National transformation is also attainable through the simple principle of Truth and Honesty - Sunday Adelaja
The dread of evil is a much more forcible principle of human actions than the prospect of good. - John Locke
The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency. - W. Somerset Maugham
These things will destroy the human race: politics without principle, progress without compassion, wealth without work, learning without silence, religion without fearlessness, and worship without awareness. - Anthony de Mello
Permissiveness is the principle of treating children as if they were adults; and the tactic of making sure they never reach that stage. - Thomas Szasz
Water is the softest thing, yet it can penetrate mountains and earth. This shows clearly the principle ofsoftness overcoming hardness. - Lao Tzu
All married couples should learn the art of battle as they should learn the art of making love. Good battle is objective and honest - never vicious or cruel. Good battle is healthy and constructive, and brings to a marriage the principle of equal partnership. - Ann Landers
That which enables us to know and understand aright in the things of God, must be a living principle of holiness within us. - John Smith Jr.
Us atheist people, we believe we have to act properly and honestly for a moral principle and not because we expect an award in Paradise. - Margherita Hack
Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear. - Harry S Truman
To see what is right, and not to do it, is want of courage or of principle. - Confucius
The moment that any of us begins to trade principle for approval we give up our power.
The embryological record is almost always abbreviated in accordance with the tendency of nature (to be explained on the principle of survival of the fittest) to attain her needs by the easiest means. - Francis Maitland Balfour
The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice. - George Eliot
There are seven sins in the world: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice and politics without principle. - Mahatma Gandhi
Chuck Norris is the only human being to display the Heisenberg uncertainty principle -- you can never know both exactly where and how quickly he will roundhouse kick you in the face. - Oliver Oliver Reed
THE FIRST PRINCIPLE OF GASTRONOMY There's a rule for proper dosesin the dinner-eaters lore:one should stop the filling processwhile one still has room for more. And if someone at the tablehad reminded me before -Hallelujah! I'd be ableto absorb a little more. - Piet Hein
Principles are meant to serve people, not people serving to uphold the principle, while harming the people. - Shannon L. Alder
Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. - Thomas Jefferson
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
Business is based on the well-known principle of supply and demand. You want something, the other man has it. The only thing left to settle is the price. - Agatha Christie
When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle. - Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Rationalism is false not because it seeks to express reality in rational mode, so far as this possible, but because it seeks to embrace the whole of reality in the realm of reason, as if the reason coincides with the very principle of things. - Osman Bakar
A country cannot change, be transformed or developed as long as there is no truth and honesty as an everyday principle among the citizens of the nation. - Sunday Adelaja
This is the rock-solid principle on which the whole of the Corporation's [IBM's] Galaxy-wide success is founded...their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws.
That which never attains a state of non-principle [non-truth] is known as the principle. - Dada Bhagwan
The speaker calls for a careful examination of Christ's principle of turning the other cheek before we use it as a demand or excuse for total personal pacifism. After all, when literally struck on the cheek, Jesus did question the legitimacy of the authority by which this was done. - John Thackway
Freedom is the great organizing principle of a life lived in a truly human way. - George Weigel
Principle comes first; action thereafter. - Todd Stocker
This nation was founded by many men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened. - John F. Kennedy
The principle must always rule that ideas are not born of other ideas, philosophies of other philosophies; they are a continually renewed of real historical development. The unity of history (what the idealists call unity of the spirit) is not a presupposition, but a continuously developing process. - Antonio Gramcsi
Journalism justifies its own existence by the great Darwinian principle of the survival of the vulgarist. - Oscar Wilde
Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want. - Joseph Wood Krutch
I have deep faith that the principle of the universe will be beautiful and simple. - Albert Einstein
The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity. - Richard Dawkins
When my heart can beat no more I hope I die for a principle or a belief that I have lived for. - Tupac Shakur
Big house, big car, big breast, big life, big this and big that; what is so big about living big? Live on KISS principle not BIG principle. - Santosh Kalwar
If there is anything that links the human to the divine, it is the courage to stand by a principle when everybody else rejects it. - Abraham Lincoln
The principle of God is every human created for the help of other human to survive the journey of life but the principle of God gonna wrong way, as now human are the main cause of destruction of other human. - Arbab Jehangir
Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principle one was that they escaped teething. - Mark Twain
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock. - Thomas Jefferson
Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost. - John Quincy Adams
The moment you are doing something to SPITE someone, just know you are the one with something to lose, which is HONOUR and PRINCIPLE. - Unarine Ramaru
The female is, as it were, a mutilated male, and the catamenia are semen, only not pure; for there is only one thing they have not in them, the principle of soul. - Aristotle
Difference is the essence of humanity. Difference is an accident of birth, and it should therefore never be the source of hatred or conflict. Therein lies a most fundamental principle of peace: respect for diversity. - John Hume
Refuse to be ill. Never tell people you are ill; never own it to yourself. Illness is one of those things which a man should resist on principle. - Edward Bulwer-Lytton
If I should die, I have left no immortal work behind me - nothing to make my friends proud of my memory - but I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remembered. - John Keats
What is considered [True] Knowledge? There should be solution from all sides, there should be no contradiction. It is a non-contradicting principle when a spoken sentence will be the same even after fifty years; there will be no contradictions. - Dada Bhagwan
Read. Read all the time. Read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of life. (Wellesly High School commencement speech, You Are Not Special, 6-12) - Teacher David McCullough
Modern scientific findings harmonize with revelation through the ages. No conflict exists between the gospel and any truth .... All true principles are a part of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no principle that we need to fear. - Spencer W. Kimball
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
(Vice President) Garner has taken his personal smallness, his lack of generosity, and forged it into a political principle. He has no imagination, no convictions, and he substitutes political cynicism for social understanding. - Hamilton Basso
I'm all in favor of the democratic principle that one idiot is as good as one genius, but I draw the line when someone takes the next step and concludes that two idiots are better than one genius. - Leo Szilard
Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home. - William Ewart Gladstone
Although the principle of equality has always been self-evident, it has never been self-executing. - Barack Obama
The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum."(Adlai E. Stevenson, 1900-1965, American Lawyer, Politician) - Adlai E. Stevenson II
People who gives excuses of lack of growth simply don’t know how to apply the principle of increase is practically inevitable. - Sunday Adelaja
I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale. - Thomas Jefferson
The first rule about the low hanging fruit principle is to always watch out for low hanging branches, they’re the ones to take it away from you. - Stephen Richards
Only wise men can differentiate between what is a matter of pride and what is a principle of dignity. - Sameh Elsayed
The universe is not for man alone, but is a theater of evolution for all living beings. Live and let live is its guiding principle. 'Ahimsa Paramo Dharmah' - Non-injury is the highest religion. - Virchand Gandhi
The principle of equality, which is at the core of democratic values, has very little meaning in a world in which global oligarchy is taking over. - bell hooks
The principle cannot be denied: the fiercer the struggle against the injustice you suffer, the blinder you will be to the injustice you inflict. We tend to translate the presumed wrongness of our enemies into an unfaltering conviction of our own rightness. - Miroslav Volf
In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate - look to his character. - Noah Webster
You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency. - W. Somerset Maugham
Adversity is the trial of principle. Without it a man hardly knows whether he is honest or not. - Henry Fielding
To mock something is pure ignorance. Intelligent people even open themselves to things that they don't understand. […] When an ignorant praises something, it won't probably be something profound. Surely it can't be the Principle that guides us. - Alfonso Colodrón
The old who refuse to die merely on principle live on forever, to hate life and complain of all the things they could have been spared had they the good sense to die young. - Michelle Franklin
Bush spoke of another principle, that a just war must "support a just cause." In the Persian Gulf, he said, "our cause could not be more noble." What nation has ever said its war was not noble? - Colman McCarthy
Democracy is, first and foremost, a spiritual force, it is built upon a spiritual basis - and on a belief in God and an observance of moral principle. And in the long run only the church can provide that basis. Our founder knew this truth - and we will neglect it at our peril.
A precedent embalms a principle. - Benjamin Disraeli
Of course we can keep this going, in principle, forever. In practice we will keel over from exhaustion, boredom, or death.
Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
My brother taught me that there is a difference between being a hater and being ignorant. Being a hater implies you understand the principle in question, while being ignorant implies that you do not understand the principle in question, and therefore, have no right to critique. - Lionel Suggs
20% of management theories are responsible for 80% of results. That’s assuming the Pareto Principle makes the cut. - Ryan Lilly
Lately I have come to believe that the principle difference between Heaven and Hell is the company you keep there.... - Lois McMaster Bujold
Whomsoever I love and hate, my principle is the same. That is, the educated, the rich and the administrators should not suck the blood of the poor. - Periyar E.V. Ramasamy
I know [patriotism] exists, and I know it has done much in the present contest. But a great and lasting war can never be supported on this principle alone. It must be aided by a prospect of interest, or some reward. - George Washington
When someone says, 'It's not the money, it's the principle of the thing', it's the money. - Kin Hubbard
Only the ‘Right belief’ gives rise to non-contradicting principle and that which is free from contradiction is known as ‘Principle’. - Dada Bhagwan
Principle’ [Established Truth] means everywhere applicable; when there is nothing else, it is called Principle. - Dada Bhagwan
Peace has to be created, in order to be maintained. It is the product of Faith, Strength, Energy, Will, Sympathy, Justice, Imagination, and the triumph of principle. It will never be achieved by passivity and quietism. - Dorothy Thompson
Truth is a fundamental principle that is needed for any form of building or construction. So also is honesty. - Sunday Adelaja
The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice. - George Eliot
Only a peace between equals can last. Only a peace the very principle of which is equality and a common participation in a common benefit. - Woodrow Wilson
The world is the puzzle, itself; but it is always in principle. - Dada Bhagwan
Depend upon it, he who wishes to win the prize must come on the principle that two and two make four. - Cardinal Wiseman
I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won't. - Mark Twain
Nothing will bind the eyes of man quicker than the touch of compromise. A principle not compromised is a principle worth dying for. A dream not compromised is a dream worth living for. - Ogwo David Emenike
There's a basic principle about consumer electronics: it gets more powerful all the time and it gets cheaper all the time. That's true of all types of consumer electronics. - Trip Hawkins
The first principle of achievement is mental attitude. People begin to achieve when they begin to believe. - Zahid Abas
For in disease the most voluntary or most special movements, faculties, etc., suffer first and most, that is in an order the exact opposite of evolution. Therefore I call this the principle of Dissolution. - John Hughlings Jackson
The key challenge facing us today is to successfully transmit into daily and everyday lifestyle the principle of truth and honesty. - Sunday Adelaja
It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it. - Arnold Joseph Toynbee
People who gives excuses of lack of growth simply don’t know how to apply the principle of increase - Sunday Adelaja
We shall all respect the principle of each other and do nothing that would be regarded as an act oppression to any portion of the people - Alexander Mackenzie
So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world. - Immanuel Kant
The principle of liberty and equality, if coupled with mere selfishness, will make men only devils, each trying to be independent that he may fight only for his own interest. And here is the need of religion and its power, to bring in the principle of benevolence and love to men. - John Randolph
It's better to be burnished with use than rusty with principle. - Garrison Keillor
Perhaps even atheism versus theism is an example of this principle that an apparent either/or can really be a both/and. For I suspect that the God you insist does not exist is probably a God I also insist does not exist; and perhaps the God I maintain does exist is a God you have never denied. - Peter Kreeft
It is a universal principle that you get more of what you think about, talk about, and feel strongly about. - Jack Canfield
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