Principle Quotes

I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.
Jane Austen

Life, Selfish, Though

Wars based on principle are far more destructive... the attacker will not destroy that which he is after.
Alan Watts

After, Far, Destroy

The dread of evil is a much more forcible principle of human actions than the prospect of good.
John Locke

Good, Evil, Human

All human actions are equivalent... and all are on principle doomed to failure.
Carl Sandburg

Failure, Human, Actions

We need to shift from an economic organizing principle for human civilization, to a humanitarian organizing principle. Making money more important than your own children is a pathological way for an individual to run their affairs, and it's a pathological way for a society to run its affairs.
Marianne Williamson

Money, Society, Children

The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.
W. Somerset Maugham

Useful, Expediency, Sacrificed

Fascism is itself less 'ideological', in so far as it openly proclaims the principle of domination that is elsewhere concealed.
Theodor Adorno

Far, Less, Fascism

Therefore I feel that the aforementioned guiding principle must be modified to read: If you desire peace, cultivate justice, but at the same time cultivate the fields to produce more bread; otherwise there will be no peace.
Norman Borlaug

Peace, Time, Justice

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

Good, Someone, Two

There is more selfishness and less principle among members of Congress than I had any conception of, before I became President of the U.S.
James K. Polk

Before, Less, President

When a man says he approves of something in principle, it means he hasn't the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice.
Otto von Bismarck

Means, Practice, Says

So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.
Immanuel Kant

Law, Whole, Action

I get angry at a principle, not a person.
Norman Schwarzkopf

The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum.
Adlai E. Stevenson

Society, Words, Free

The first and only principle of sexual ethics: the accuser is always in the wrong.
Theodor Adorno

Wrong, Ethics, Sexual

A war for a great principle ennobles a nation.
Albert Pike

Great, War, Nation

The natural principle of war is to do the most harm to our enemy with the least harm to ourselves; and this of course is to be effected by stratagem.
Washington Irving

War, Enemy, Ourselves

Campaigns often make standing on principle the highest of virtues - and listening to your opponents a sure sign of weakness. It's the virtual opposite of what it takes to succeed in office. Squaring the circle takes a powerful combination of skills. But presidents who can campaign and compromise are generally the most successful.
Dee Dee Myers

Successful, Powerful, Often

Chinese civilisation is so systematic that wild animals have been abolished on principle.
Aleister Crowley

Wild, Chinese, Systematic

I shall argue that strong men, conversely, know when to compromise and that all principles can be compromised to serve a greater principle.
Andrew Carnegie

Men, Strong, Compromise

Since the generality of persons act from impulse, much more than from principle, men are neither so good nor so bad as we are apt to think them.
Augustus Hare

The only objects of practical reason are therefore those of good and evil. For by the former is meant an object necessarily desired according to a principle of reason; by the latter one necessarily shunned, also according to a principle of reason.
Immanuel Kant

Good, Evil, Reason

Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home.
William E. Gladstone

Good, Home, Government

This source of corruption, alas, is inherent in the democratic system itself, and it can only be controlled, if at all, by finding ways to encourage legislators to subordinate ambition to principle.
James L. Buckley

Corruption, Ambition, System

Equality is the public recognition, effectively expressed in institutions and manners, of the principle that an equal degree of attention is due to the needs of all human beings.
Simone Weil

Equality, Human, Attention

Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principle.
Will Durant

Government, Basic, Excess

My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.
Franz Kafka

Guilt, Guiding, Doubted

In principle the great religions of the world do not differ as much as they appear to.
Ernest Holmes

Great, Appear, Religions

To be ambitious of true honor, of the true glory and perfection of our natures, is the very principle and incentive of virtue.
Walter Scott

True, Honor, Perfection

No habit or quality is more easily acquired than hypocrisy, nor any thing sooner learned than to deny the sentiments of our hearts and the principle we act from: but the seeds of every passion are innate to us, and nobody comes into the world without them.
Bernard de Mandeville

Passion, Learned, Act

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