quotes, quotations and passages on principle

When you know what your values are,
making decisions becomes easier.

Glenn van Eckeren

Learn from your earliest days to insure your principles against the perils of ridicule. If you think it right to differ from the times, and to make a stand for any valuable point of morals, do it, however rustic, however antiquated, however pedantic it may appear; do it, not for insolence, but seriously, and grandly, as people who wear souls of their own in their bosoms, and do not wait till it shall be breathed into them by the breath of fashion. Sydney Smith

Any business or industry that pays equal rewards to its goof-offs and its eager-beavers sooner or later will find itself with more goof-offs than eager-beavers. Mike Delaney

My creed is that public service must be more than doing a job efficiently and honestly. It must be a complete dedication to the people and to the nation with full recognition that every human being is entitled to courtesy and consideration, that constructive criticism is not only to be expected but sought, that smears are not only to be expected but fought, that honor is to be earned, not bought. Margaret Chase Smith

It's important that people should know what you stand for. It's equally important that they know what you won't stand for. Mary H. Waldrip Principles are like a seed in the ground; they must continually be visited with heavenly influences or else your life will be a barren field. Thomas Traherne

But warm, eager, living life--to be rooted in life--to learn,
to desire to know, to feel, to think, to act. That is what I
want. And nothing less. That is what I must try for.

Katherine Mansfield

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Always fall in with what you're asked to accept. Take what is given,
and make it your own way. My aim in life has always been
to hold my own with whatever's going. Not against: with.

Robert Frost

Faithfully faithful to every trust,
Honestly honest in every deed,
Righteously righteous and justly just:
This is the whole of the good person's creed.

unattributed

I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashion.

Lillian Hellman

If people walk in the woods for the love of them half of each day, they are in danger
of being regarded as loafers; but if they spend their whole day as speculators,
shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her time,
they are esteemed industrious and enterprising citizens.
As if a town had no interest in forests but to cut them down!

Henry David Thoreau

Let us, then, be what we are; speak what we think;
and in all things keep ourselves loyal to truth.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond
this life. I believe in the equality of humans; and I believe that
religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring
to make our fellow creatures happy.

Thomas Paine

It says something about our times that we rarely use the
word sinful, except to describe a really good dessert.

Willard D. Ferrell

Socrates: If, acting under the advice of men who have no understanding, we destroy that which is improvable by health and deteriorated by disease--when that has been destroyed, I say, would life be worth having? And that is--the body?
Crito: Yes
Socrates: Could we live, having an evil and corrupted body?
Crito: Certainly not.
Socrates: And will life be worth having, if that higher part of man be depraved, which is improvable by justice and deteriorated by injustice? Do we suppose that principle, whatever it may be in man, which has to do with justice and injustice, to be inferior to the body?
Crito: Certainly not.
Socrates: More honored, then?
Crito: Far more honored.
Socrates: Then, my friend, we must not regard what the many say of us: but what he, the one man who has understanding of just and unjust, will say, and what the truth will say. And therefore you begin in error when you suggest that we should regard the opinion of the many about just and unjust, honorable and dishonorable.

From the Crito

principle 2

The place to take the test of a man is not the forum or field, not the marketplace
or the amen corner, but at his own fireside. There he lays aside his mask
and you may judge whether he is imp or angel, king or cur, hero or humbug.
I care not what the world says of him, whether it crown him with bays
or pelt him with eggs; I care never a copper what his reputation or religion may be;
if his babes dread his homecoming and his better half has to swallow her heart
every time she asks him for a five dollar bill, he's a fraud of the first water,
even though he prays night and morn until he is black in the face,
and howls hallelujah until he shakes the eternal hills. But if his children rush
to the front gate meet him, and love's own sunshine illumines the face
of his wife when she hears his footsteps, you may take it for granted
that he is true gold, for his home's a heaven and the humbug
never got that close to the great white throne of God.

William Cowper Brann

The principles we live by, in business and in social life,
are the most important part of happiness.

Harry Harrison

We have always found that, if the principles were right,
the area over which they were affected did not matter.
Size is only a matter of the multiplication table.

Henry Ford

Many people do not allow their principles to take root, but pull them
up every now and then, as children do the flowers
they have planted, to see if they are growing.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

We distinguish the excellent person from the common person
by saying that the former is the one who makes great demands
on him or herself, and the latter the one who makes no demands
on him or herself.

Jose Ortega y Gasset

What does it profit you if you gain the whole world
and lose your own soul?

Jesus of Nazareth

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Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles.

Confucius

One thing is always wrong--always: to cause suffering in others for the
purpose of gratifying one's own pleasures; that is everlastingly wrong.

Lafcadio Hearn

No one knows what they are doing so long as they are
acting rightly; but of what is wrong one is always conscious.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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

Don't believe that winning is really everything. It's
more important to stand for something. If you don't
stand for something, what do you win?

Lane Kirkland

Articles and book excerpts on principle:

On Strength Kent Nerburn
Top Ten Principles to Live by--Plus One! Louise Morganti Kaelin
What's Wrong with Grown-Ups?

principle 2

Most people are willing to take the Sermon on the Mount as a flag to
sail under, but few will use it as a rudder by which to steer.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Old cranks have practiced all their lives, just as old saints
have likewise practiced all their lives. They just
practiced different life principles.

John Powell

The more clearly a principle is understood by the intellect, the
more inexcusable is the neglect to put it into practice.

Allan Karder

There are principles which govern our life--they are the principles
of Life. If our life is lived according to these principles all is well,
and harmony reigns in place of vexation and struggle.

Henry T. Hamblin

Principles don't die. They aren't here one day and
gone the next. They can't be destroyed by fire,
earthquake or theft. Principles are deep,
fundamental truths, classic truths.

Stephen R. Covey