Quotes about Principles

"There is nothing training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach. It can turn bad morals to good; it can destroy bad principles and recreate good ones; it can lift men to angelship."
-Mark Twain

"I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world."
-Oscar Wilde

"No politician has ever yet been able to rule his country, nor has any country ever yet been able to face the world, upon the principles of the Sermon on the Mount."
-Frederick Scott Oliver

"Men have laid down the rules and definitions by which the world is run, and one of the objects of their definitions is woman."
-Sally Kempton

"'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death."
-Thomas Paine

"It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a hospital that it should do the sick no harm."
-Florence Nightingale

"When you say you agree to a thing in principle you mean that you have not the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice."
-Otto von Bismarck

"When we deal with questions relating to principles of law and their applications, we do not suddenly rise into a stratosphere of icy certainty."
-Charles Evans Hughes

"Sir, I wish to understand the true principles of the Government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more."
-William Henry Harrison

"I would rather be an opportunist and float than go to the bottom with my principles around my neck."
-Stanley Baldwin

"Principles have no real force except when one is well fed."
-Mark Twain

"Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed."
-Mark Twain

"We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles."
-Mark Twain

"I find that principles have no real force except when one is well fed."
-Mark Twain

"The habit of intellectual principles without reasons is called faith."
-Friedrich Nietzsche

"I don't like principles. I prefer prejudices."
-Oscar Wilde

"And, sir, when we think of eternity, and of the future consequences of all human conduct, what is there in this life that should make any man contradict the dictates of his conscience, the principles of justice, the laws of religion, and of God?"
-William Wilberforce

"He that always gives way to others will end in having no principles of his own."
-Aesop

"Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles."
-Confucius

"One of the most basic principles for making and keeping peace within and between nations. . . is that in political, military, moral, and spiritual confrontations, there should be an honest attempt at the reconciliation of differences before resorting to combat."
-Jimmy Carter

"Liberty, equality - bad principles! The only true principle for humanity is justice; and justice to the feeble is protection and kindness."
-Henri Frederic Amiel

"General principles should not be based on exceptional cases."
-Robert J. Sawyer

"Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom."
-John Adams

"Some believe all that parents, tutors, and kindred believe. They take their principles by inheritance, and defend them as they would their estates, because they are born heirs to them."
-Alan Watts

"Our program offers young children in the church and the community a loving and educational Christian environment where they cannot only develop a strong educational foundation but also build Christian principles, attitudes and character traits."
-Tim Richardson

"Action based only on principles isn't always good even if it feels good."
-John Chancellor

"Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles."
-George Jean Nathan

"We have agreed on the principles of the visit."
-Bill Rammell