"What can be accomplished by a few principles is not effected by many. But it seems that everything we see in the world can be accounted for by other principles, supposing God did not exist. For all natural things can be reduced to one principle, which is nature, and all voluntary things can be reduced to one principle, which is human reason, or will. Therefore there is no need to suppose God's existence."
Principles quotes
Principles
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Principles quotes (page 26 of 117)
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"To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, "by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only." Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of it's benefits, than is done by it's abandoned prostitution to falsehood."
"Principle-centered people are constantly educated by their experiences."
"What difference would a clear vision of my principles, values, and ultimate objectives make in the way I spend my time?"
"The best principles in our lives were those which we heard from our mothers through our ears."
"We do not seek to thrust the principles of our religion upon anyone. The fundamental principles of our religion forbid that."
"The main feature should be the teaching of principles through stories. Don't make it metaphysical at all."
"Since everything emanates from God, he is the embodied principle in every being. Each one of us is made from God. Tat twam asi - "You are That One" who is eternally blissful, that one principle manifesting itself as this variety of Creation."
"He knew when to compromise. Yet he never compromised his principles. He was a militant. Yet a militant who knew how to plan, assess concrete situations and emerge with rational solutions to problems."
"What experience and history teach is this - that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on any lessons they might have drawn from it. Variant: What experience and history teach is this - that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it."
"It is said that there is a principle of conflict which originated with the single cell and has never deteriorated."
"Life is indeed terribly complicated—to a man who has lost his principles."
"In fact, by universal grammar I mean just that system of principles and structures that are the prerequisites for acquisition of language, and to which every language necessarily conforms."
"In practice, such trifles as contradictions in principle are easily set aside; the faculty of ignoring them makes the practical man."
"A man far oftener appears to have a decided character from persistently following his temperament than from persistently following his principles."
"In every party there is one person who, through his dotingly credulous enunciation of party principles, incites the other members to defection."
"The Europeans are all deeply tainted with prejudices, both ecclesiastical and temporal, which they can never get rid of. They are all infected with episcopal and presbyterian creeds, and confessions of faith. They all believe that great Principle which has produced this boundless universe, Newton's universe and Herschell's universe, came down to this little ball, to be spit upon by Jews. And until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world."
"Of all people who engage in controversy, we, who are called Calvinists, are most expressly bound by our own principles to the exercise of gentleness and moderation."
"I started out in a kid’s backyard playing touch football and I never abandoned the principle when I got to the pros: if they can’t touch you, they can’t tackle you."
"Resistances do not derive from a few heterogeneous principles; but neither are they a lure or a promise that is of necessity betrayed. They are the odd term in relations of power; they are inscribed in the latter as an irreducible opposite."