127 Principles Quotes

When our party had only seven men, it already had two principles. First, it wanted to be a party with a true ideology. And second, it wanted to be the one and only power in Germany.

Today, on this day of possibility, we stand in the shadow of a lanky, raw-boned man with little formal education who once took the stage at Old Main and told the nation that if anyone did not believe the American principles of freedom and equality, that those principles were timeless and all-inclusive, they should go rip that page out of the Declaration of Independence.

Americans are willing to go to enormous trouble and expense defending their principles with arms, very little trouble and expense advocating them with words. Temperamentally we are ready to die for certain principles (or, in the case of overripe adults, send youngsters to die), but we show little inclination to advertise the reasons for dying.

All the great things of humanity have been accomplished in the name of absolute principles.

I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.

[My mother] closed the school the next day [after a visit from Castro's soldiers], because she knew that the purpose of education was the broadening and opening of children's minds. And she couldn't be a party to the systematic closing of minds, borders, freedoms and ideals.

Duty is the great business of a sea officer; all private considerations must give way to it, however painful it may be.

In this outward and physical ceremony we attest once again to the inner and spiritual strength of our Nation. As my high school teacher, Miss Julia Coleman, used to say: 'We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.'

If we don't believe in free expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.

The Democrats were in the majority in the U.S. Senate when we voted for the Iraq war and passed the U.S. Patriot Act. It's not enough to be in the majority, you have to stand for something.

It is a very great mistake to imagine that the object of loyalty is the authority and interest of one individual man, however dignified by the applause or enriched by the success of popular actions.

The paramount question of the day is not political, is not religious, but is economic. The crying-out demand of today is for a circle of principles that shall forever make it impossible for one man to control another by controlling the means of his existence.

'What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this?' 'I don't know. My: my code of morals, perhaps.' 'Your code of morals. What code, if I may ask?' 'Comprehension.'

Truth has not special time of its own. Its hour is now - always and indeed then most truly when it seems unsuitable to actual circumstances.

'Think simple' as my old master used to say. Meaning, reduce the whole of its parts into the simplest terms, getting back to first principles.

We can either have a free Parliament or a free people. Personal freedom requires that all authority is restrained by long-run principles which the opinion of the people approves.

The task of the political philosopher can only be to influence public opinion, not to organize people for action. He will do so effectively only if he is not concerned with what is now politically possible but consistently defends the 'general principles which are always the same.' In this sense I doubt whether there can be such a thing as a conservative political philosophy. Conservatism may often be a useful practical maxim, but it does not give us any guiding principles which can influence long-range developments.

The gentleman cannot have forgotten his own sentiment, uttered even on the floor of this House, 'Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must.'

'There is only one side to the stock market; and it is not the bull side or the bear side, but the right side'

There are many qualities that make a great leader but having strong beliefs, being able to stick with them through popular and unpopular times, is the most important characteristic of a great leader.

If I must choose between righteousness and peace I choose righteousness.

Lay down true principles and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of wealth against the ascendency of the people.

Our system presumes that there are certain principles that are more important than the temper of the times. And you must have a judge who is detached, who is independent, who is fair, who is committed only to those principles, and not public pressures of other sort.

But speaking of rules, you've been arrested dozens of times in your life. Specific incidents aside, what's common to these run-ins? Where do you stand vis-a-vis the law? 'Goddammit. Yeah, I have. First, there's a huge difference between being arrested and being guilty. Second, see, the law changes and I don't. How I stand vis-a-vis the law at any given moment depends on the law. The law can change from state to state, from nation to nation, from city to city. I guess I have to go by a higher law. How's that? Yeah, I consider myself a road man for the lords of karma.'

We live in a time of transition, an uneasy era which is likely to endure for the rest of this century. During the period we may be tempted to abandon some of the time-honored principles and commitments which have been proven during the difficult times of past generations. We must never yield to this temptation. Our American values are not luxuries, but necessities- not the salt in our bread, but the bread itself.

My father taught me that you have to stand by your principles. He was president of the bar association and was preaching civil liberties and human rights during some of the most repressive years of the Nasser era. He was the focus of a lot of pressure and intimidation, but he stood by his principles. And I think that's a lesson I remember from him - that you stand up for what you believe in.

'When your principles seem to be demanding suicide, clearly it's time to check your premises'[3]

In the Will work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance, and shalt sit hereafter out of fear from her rotations. A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

The lesson of all this was, of course, that because we're a great nation, our challenges seem complex. It will always be this way. But as long as we remember our first principles and believe in ourselves, the future will always be ours. And something else we learned: Once you begin a great movement, there's no telling where it will end. We meant to change a nation, and instead, we changed a world.

No man is justified in doing evil on the grounds of expediency.

A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.'

It is a fraud of the Christian system to call the sciences human invention; it is only the application of them that is human. Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed. Man cannot make principles, he can only discover them.

It is better to be defeated standing for a high principle than to run by committing subterfuge.

I hear many condemn these men because they were so few. When were the good and the brave ever in a majority? Would you have had him wait till that time came? - till you and I came over to him? The very fact that he had no rabble or troop of hirelings about him would alone distinguish him from ordinary heroes. His company was small indeed, because few could be found worthy to pass muster. Each one who there laid down his life for the poor and oppressed was a picked man, culled out of many thousands, if not millions; apparently a man of principle, of rare courage, and devoted humanity; ready to sacrifice his life at any moment for the benefit of his fellow-man.

A metaphysics of morals is therefore indispensably necessary, not merely because of a motive to speculation- for investigating the source of the practical basic principles that lie a priori in our reason- but also because morals themselves remain subject to all sorts of corruption as long as we are without that clue and supreme norm by which to appraise them correctly...

Do what is right, though the world may perish.

What is right and what is practicable are two different things.

We must never forget that it is principles not phenomena,-laws, not insulated, independent facts, which are the object and the inquiry of the natural philosopher.

One just principle from the depths of a cave is more powerful than an army.

So far as I am concerned, I think more of reasons than of reputations, more of principles than of persons, more of nature than of names, more of facts, than of faiths.

The phrase 'honest politician' is an oxymoron; yet in the sense that Paul never, ever votes against his stated principles -- which are libertarian and include the belief that much of our federal government, from the IRS to the Department of Education, and the massive taxes that support it, should be abolished -- the phrase describes him... The same beliefs that cause him to vote against every single appropriations bill in Congress also carry over to his private life. He intends, for example, to refuse his congressional pension. He would not let his children take out federally subsidized education loans. He actually returns money each year from his congressional office -- some $50,000 last year.

I have always thought that there are two brands of conservatives: the kind who follow the money and conservatives of principle. Paul is a conservative of principle. He's held his ground, and he is an honest man.

The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.

It is not true that people of high principles are ill-suited for politics. High principles have only to be accompanied by patience, consideration, a sense of measure and understanding for others. It is not true that only coldhearted, cynical, arrogant, haughty or brawling persons succeed in politics. Such people are naturally attracted by politics. In the end, however, politeness and good manners weigh more.

Our differences are policies; our agreements, principles.

Patriotism must be founded on great principals and supported by great virtue.

Thoreau's thin, penetrating, big-nosed face, even in a bad woodcut, conveys some hint of the limitations of his mind and character. With his almost acid sharpness of insight, with his almost animal dexterity in act, there went none of that large, unconscious geniality of the world's heroes. He was not easy, not ample, not urbane, not even kind; his enjoyment was hardly smiling, or the smile was not broad enough to be convincing; he had no waste lands nor kitchen-midden in his nature, but was all improved and sharpened to a point. 'He was bred to no profession,' says Emerson; 'he never married; he lived alone; he never went to church; he never voted; he refused to pay a tax to the State; he ate no flesh, he drank no wine, he never knew the use of tobacco and, though a naturalist, he used neither trap nor gun. When asked at dinner what dish he preferred, he answered, 'the nearest.'' So many negative superiorities begin to smack a little of the prig. From his later works he was in the habit of cutting out the humorous passages, under the impression that they were beneath the dignity of his moral muse; and there we see the prig stand public and confessed.