It follows from what we have just said, that the natural changes of monads come from an internal principle, since an external cause would be unable to influence their inner being.
Gottfried Leibniz

Men act like brutes in so far as the sequences of their perceptions arise through the principle of memory only, like those empirical physicians who have mere practice without theory.
Gottfried Leibniz

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

All of the animals except for man know that the principle business of life is to enjoy it.
Samuel Butler

To live for a principle, for the triumph of some reform by which all mankind are to be lifted up to be wedded to an idea may be, after all, the holiest and happiest of marriages.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton

As a matter of principle, I always come to a film like a blank slate, I don't learn my lines in advance. With this approach, I feel clean.
Jeanne Moreau

I think a man ought to get drunk at least twice a year just on principle, so he won't let himself get snotty about it.
Raymond Chandler

For myself, therefore, I desire to declare that the principle that will govern me in the high duty to which my country calls me is a strict adherence to the letter and spirit of the Constitution as it was designed by those who framed it.
Martin Van Buren

Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile. This is a party of government, and I will lead it as a party of government.
Tony Blair

When applied to politics and taken to its extreme, kitsch is the mask of death. Fascism was all aesthetics. There was no core principle to it. There was no truth to it.
John Cusack

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

There are three principles in a man's being and life, the principle of thought, the principle of speech, and the principle of action. The origin of all conflict between me and my fellow-men is that I do not say what I mean and I don't do what I say.
Martin Buber

That the state of knowledge in any country will exert a directive influence on the general system of instruction adopted in it, is a principle too obvious to require investigation.
Charles Babbage

America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world.
George H. W. Bush

Power is action; the electoral principle is discussion. No political action is possible when discussion is permanently established.
Honore De Balzac

The sound principle of a topsy-turvy lifestyle in the framework of an upside-down world order has stood every test.
Karl Kraus

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.
Corazon Aquino

I think you need people of principle, of character, that are leaders, that take stands on important tough issues that will affect the future of this country.
Sean Hannity

The first principle of a civilized state is that the power is legitimate only when it is under contract.
Walter Lippmann

The United Nations, whose membership comprises almost all the states in the world, is founded on the principle of the equal worth of every human being.
Kofi Annan