Principles quotes
2.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside principles — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"The principle we call self-love never seeks anything external for the sake of the thing, but only as a means of happiness or good: particular affections rest in the external things themselves."
"And with respect to the mode in which these general principles affect the secure possession of property, so far am I from invalidating such security, that the whole gist of these papers will be found ultimately to aim at an extension in its range; and whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have no right to the property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no right to the property of the poor."
"If there be any one principle more widely than another confessed by every utterance, or more sternly than another imprinted on every atom of the visible creation, that principle is not liberty, but law."
"I don't need to compromise my principles, because they don't have the slightest bearing on what happens to me anyway."
"If there is a form of government, then, whose principle and foundation is virtue, will not every sober man acknowledge it better calculated to promote the general happiness than any other form?"
"Relativity theory forced the abandonment, in principle, of absolute space and absolute time."
"Love is the supreme unifying principle of life."
"I judge people by their own principles..not by my own"
"Poetry, and the principle of Self, of which money is the visible incarnation, are the God and the Mammon of the world."
"I am a great believer that all the primary research has to be done before principle writing begins. I'm a huge advocate of plotting."
"It's not that easy to quit. When you look back in the American system it is very rare that people quit on issues of principle."
"There are no principles; there are only events. There is no good and bad, there are only circumstances."
"One thing I certainly never was made for, and that is to put principles on and off at the dictation of a party, as a lackey changes his livery at his master's command."
"I want the principles of a timeless muse, I want to eradicate my negative views."
"It is never too early to try and plant [good principles] in a child, and never too late to cultivate them in the most neglected person."
"There is something very pleasing about the principles of science and the rules of math, because they are so inevitable and so harmonious - in the abstract, anyway."
