Quotes about principle (3658 quotes, page 29)

“I consider the Fourth a patriotic holday more than a nationalist one. We are celebrating the signing of a text, the establishment of a set of laws and principles on the Fourth of July. The Fourth is about political liberty and national independence. It is, for all its pomp and circumstance, a fairly secular and rational holiday. Meanwhile, Thanksgiving plays upon the mystic chords of memory and is prior to and independent of many of things we celebrate on the Fourth. Anyway, I agree its a fair criticism and probably just highlights different perspectives. And, yes, the food on the Fourth of July is really, really good. I am all about hotdogs, beer and barbecue.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

November 2004 http://web.archive.org/web/20040421/www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/04_11_24_corner-archive.asp
2000s, 2004

Law , Food , Beer , Memory

“The principle obstacle to human dominion over the rain forests is still the rich variety of parasites lying in wait for intruders.”

William H. McNeill (1917–2016) Canadian historian

Source: Plagues and Peoples (1976), Ch.1 "Man the Hunter".

Lying , Waiting

“I am often asked what it was like to be a woman clerking for Justice Scalia. “Much like being a man clerking for him” is my easy answer. Justice Scalia believed in one simple principle: That law came to the court as an is not an ought. Statutes, cases and the Constitution were to be read for what they said, not for what the judges wished they would say. Each of his opinions needed to conform to that principle and to be written clearly, forcefully and accurately. If you could help him with that, you were useful to him. If not, then not. When we were working, we sometimes joked that he could not even remember our names.”

Joan Larsen (1968) United States Circuit Judge for the Sixth Circuit

What I Learned From Justice Scalia https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/16/opinion/what-i-learned-from-justice-scalia.html?_r=0 (February 16, 2016)

Justice , Law , Reading , Help

“ANARCHISM (from the Gr. ἅν, and άρχη, contrary to authority), the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government — harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being. In a society developed on these lines, the voluntary associations which already now begin to cover all the fields of human activity would take a still greater extension so as to substitute themselves for the state in all its functions. They would represent an interwoven network, composed of an infinite variety of groups and federations of all sizes and degrees, local, regional, national and international temporary or more or less permanent — for all possible purposes: production, consumption and exchange, communications, sanitary arrangements, education, mutual protection, defence of the territory, and so on; and, on the other side, for the satisfaction of an ever-increasing number of scientific, artistic, literary and sociable needs. Moreover, such a society would represent nothing immutable. On the contrary — as is seen in organic life at large — harmony would (it is contended) result from an ever-changing adjustment and readjustment of equilibrium between the multitudes of forces and influences, and this adjustment would be the easier to obtain as none of the forces would enjoy a special protection from the state.”

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…

Kropotkin's entry on "Anarchism" in the Encyclopædia Britannica (1910) http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/britanniaanarchy.html

Life , Education , Law , Communication

“In short, individual freedom of speech leads to a stronger society. But knowing that principle is not enough. You have to know how to put it to use on the Net.”

Mike Godwin book Cyber Rights

"Cyber Rights: Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age": 17.
Cyber Rights

Freedom

“The President's Proclamation is in direct contradiction of the legal positivism reigning in the legal profession, a positivism held no less tenaciously by conservatives than liberals, a positivism that denies all constitutional status to the principles of the Declaration of Independence. The contrast between the President's Proclamation and this positivism reveals a profound alienation from the principles of the American Founding among our nation's intellectual elites.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, Bush's Lincolnian Challenge (2002)

“This is a human form in which every Divine entity, every Divine principle, that is to say, all the names and forms ascribed by man to God, are manifest… You are very fortunate that you have the chance to experiences the bliss of the vision of the form, which is the form of all gods, now, in this life itself.”

Sathya Sai Baba (1926–2011) Indian guru

Statement (1968) as quoted in Sathya Sai Speaks Volume VIII, p. 99f

Life , God , Chance

“I alternate my aims; at one time, I concentrate on poetry, on a more expressionist kind of sculpture; at other times on form – I mean on a kind of sculpture that concerns itself with formal relations rather than emotions or ideas. I suppose that this principle of alternating my aims leads to a kind of oscillation in the evolution of my own particular style as a sculptor, but I feel that it prevents me from repeating myself.”

Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967) French sculptor

c. 1960
Source: 1960 - 1968, Dialogues – conversations with.., quotes, c. 1960, p. 154

Feeling , Idea , Time

“You need only look around you, replied PHILO, to satisfy yourself with regard to this question. A tree bestows order and organisation on that tree which springs from it, without knowing the order; an animal in the same manner on its offspring; a bird on its nest; and instances of this kind are even more frequent in the world than those of order, which arise from reason and contrivance. To say, that all this order in animals and vegetables proceeds ultimately from design, is begging the question; nor can that great point be ascertained otherwise than by proving, a priori, both that order is, from its nature, inseparably attached to thought; and that it can never of itself, or from original unknown principles, belong to matter.”

David Hume book Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Philo to Demea, Part VII
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779)

World , Spring , Question , Nature

“And now, as a result of honoring our commitment to our gallant allies, that man Roosevelt has sought from the U. S. Congress a declaration of war not only against England and France but also against the Confederate States of America. His servile lackeys, misnamed Democrats, have given him what he wanted, and the telegraph informs me that fighting has begun along our border and on the high seas. Leading our great and peaceful people into war is a fearful thing, not least because, with the great advances of science and industry over the past half-century, this may prove the most disastrous and terrible of all wars, truly a war of the nations: indeed a war of the world. But right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for those things we have always held dear in our hearts: for the rights of the Confederate States and of the white men who live in them; for the liberties of small nations everywhere from outside oppression; for our own freedom and independence from the vicious, bloody regime to the north. To such a task we can dedicate our lives and fortunes, everything we are and all that we have, with the pride of those who know the day has come when the Confederacy is privileged to spend her blood and her strength for the principles that gave her birth and led to her present happiness. God helping us, we can do nothing else. Men of the Confederacy, is it your will that a state of war should exist henceforth between us and the United States of America?" "Yes!”

Harry Turtledove book The Great War: American Front

The answer roared from Reginald Bartlett's throat, as from those of the other tens of thousands of people jamming the Capitol Square. Someone flung a straw hat in the air. In an instant, hundreds of them, Bartlett's included, were flying. A great chorus of "Dixie" rang out, loud enough, Bartlett thought, for the damnyankees to hear it in Washington.
Source: The Great War: American Front (1998), p. 33

Men , God , War , People

“The British monarchy inculcates unthinking credulity and servility. It forms a heavy layer on the general encrustation of our unreformed political institutions. It is the gilded peg from which our unlovely system of social distinction and hierarchy depends. It is an obstacle to the objective public discussion of our own history. It tribalises politics. It entrenches the absurdity of the hereditary principle. It contributes to what sometimes looks like an enfeeblement of the national intelligence, drawing from our press and even from some of our poets the sort of degrading and abnegating propaganda that would arouse contempt if displayed in Zaire or Romania. It is, in short, neither dignified nor efficient.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

1990s, The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish

History , Intelligence , Drawing , Dependency

“The genius of the Constitution rests not in any static meaning it might have had in a world that is dead and gone, but in the adaptability of its great principles to cope with current problems and current needs.”

William J. Brennan (1906–1997) American judge

Speech to the Text and Teaching Symposium at Georgetown University (October 12, 1985).

World , Problem , Dead

“In the practical sense the word principle may be applied to any underlying cause of more or less correlated facts in any particular field of investigation. The word principles, as applied to organization, is used by us strictly in the latter meaning.”

James D. Mooney (1884–1957) American businessman

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 17

Sense

“The course of our country in recent years has been an example of these principles. We have avoided entanglements by reserving to our own decision when and how we should help. We have not failed to help. We have contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to foreign charities. We have given freely of our counsel to the settlement of difficulties in Latin America and the adjustment of war problems in Europe. We are still pursuing that course. It has been a practical course, and it has secured practical results. One of these most important results is found in the disarmament treaties, which have saved our own country to date about $300,000,000, and likewise relieved other nations. Another important result has been the adoption of the Dawes plan for the settlement of reparations. The effect these will have in averting war and promoting peace cannot possibly be overestimated. They stand out as great monuments, truly directing the course of men along the way to more civilization, more enlightenment, and more righteousness. They appear to me properly to mark the end of the old order, and the beginning of a new era. We hope they are the end of aggressive war and the beginning of permanent peace.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Ordered Liberty and World Peace (1924)

Men , War , Peace , Hope

“Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the state was to make men free to develop their faculties, and that in its government the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that without free speech and assembly discussion would be futile; that with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government.”

Louis Brandeis (1856–1941) American Supreme Court Justice

Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 375 (1927), at 375. In this case, in which the Court upheld a California anti-Communist statute, Brandeis, writing in a concurrence joined by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., concurred in the judgment but not in the reasoning. Whitney was later overruled (with the later Court adopting Brandeis's reasoning) in Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969).
Judicial opinions

Men , People , Truth , Secret

“A principle is universal, a rule is inflexible, a law is invariable.”

Robert Fripp (1946) English guitarist, composer and record producer

The Six Principles of the Performance Event

Law , Universe

“My first essay at making a steam engine was when I was fifteen. I then made a real working; steam-engine, 1 3/4 diameter cylinder, and 8 in. stroke, which not only could act, but really did some useful work; for I made it grind the oil colours which my father required for his painting. Steam engine models, now so common, were exceedingly scarce in those days, and very difficult to be had; and as the demand for them arose, I found it both delightful and profitable to make them; as well as sectional models of steam engines, which I introduced for the purpose of exhibiting the movements of all the parts, both exterior and interior. With the results of the sale of such models I was enabled to pay the price of tickets of admission to the lectures on natural philosophy and chemistry delivered in the University of Edinburgh. About the same time (1826) I was so happy as to be employed by Professor Leslie in making models and portions of apparatus required by him for his lectures and philosophical investigations, and I had also the inestimable good fortune to secure his friendship. His admirably clear manner of communicating a knowledge of the fundamental principles of mechanical science rendered my intercourse with him of the utmost importance to myself. A hearty, cheerful, earnest desire to toil in his service, caused him to take pleasure in instructing me by occasional explanations of what might otherwise have remained obscure.”

James Nasmyth (1808–1890) Scottish mechanical engineer and inventor

James Nasmyth in: Industrial Biography: Iron-workers and Tool-makers https://books.google.nl/books?id=ZMJLAAAAMAAJ, Ticknor and Fields, 1864. p. 337

Friendship , Pleasure , Communication , Nature

“What right had I to value her less than the bodies in the square? Suffering is not increased by numbers; one body can contain all the suffering the world can feel. I had judged like a journalist, in terms of quantity, and I had betrayed my own principles; I had become as engage as Pyle, and it seemed to me that no decision would ever be simple again.”

Graham Greene book The Quiet American

Pt. IV, ch. 2, pg 242
The Quiet American (1955)

World , Feeling , Decision , Suffering

“Perhaps there is nobody who would sacrifice his life for the sake of maintaining that the three angles of a triangle are together equal to two right angles, for such a truth does not demand the sacrifice of our life; but, on the other hand, there are many who have lost their lives for the sake of maintaining their religious faith. Indeed, it is truer to say that martyrs make faith than that faith makes martyrs. For faith is not the mere adherence of the intellect to an abstract principle; it is not the recognition of a theoretical truth, the process in which the will merely sets in motion our faculty of comprehension; faith is an act of the will — it is a movement of the soul towards a practical truth, towards a person, towards something that makes us not merely comprehend life, but that makes us live.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), IX : Faith, Hope, and Charity

Life , Truth , Faith , Soul

“Saying that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say. It’s a deeply anti social principle because rights are not just individual, they’re collective, and what may not have value to you today may have value to an entire population, an entire people, an entire way of life tomorrow. And if you don’t stand up for it, then who will?”

Edward Snowden (1983) American whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor

Jean-Michel Jarre, Edward Snowden - Exit, 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNESMafb5ZI
2015

Life , People , Way , Freedom

“[Indra's Net is a metaphor for] the profound cosmology and outlook that permeates Hinduism. Indra's Net symbolizes the universe as a web of connections and interdependences […] I seek to revive it as the foundation for Vedic cosmology and show how it went on to become the central principle of Buddhism, and from there spread into mainstream Western discourse across several disciplines.”

Rajiv Malhotra book Indra's Net

Indra's Net (2014)

Universe

“The wide experience to be gained at the Scots Bar has its advantages. It does not enable one to become such an expert in any single department as the English specialist… but it tends to a sound knowledge of the legal principles common to all branches of the law. The Scottish Judges have always been more interested in principle than in precedent and the Bar have conformed to this lead. In the House of Lords this feature of Scottish advocacy has been often remarked and admired.”

Hugh Macmillan, Baron Macmillan (1873–1952) British judge

Source: A Man of Law's Tale (1952), At the Scottish bar, p. 48

Law , Knowledge , Housing

“The utmost possible regarding an individual is a statement as to some order of probability about the future. Heisenberg's principle has been seized upon as a basis for wild statements to the effect that the doctrine of arbitrary free will and totally uncaused activity are now scientifically substantiated. Its actual force and significance is generalization of the idea that the individual is a temporal career whose future cannot logically be deduced from its past.”

John Dewey (1859–1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer

Time and Individuality (1940)

Idea , Past , Future

“We had then and still have to fight a two-front battle. Ranged against us on the one hand are those who denounce us for our alleged ‘departure from the principles of nationalism and socialism’, since we are championing ‘sectarian’ causes like those of oppressed castes and religious minorities. On the other hand are those who, in the name of defending the oppressed caste masses, in fact, isolate them from the mainstream of the united struggle of the working people irrespective of caste, communities and so on.”

E. M. S. Namboodiripad (1909–1998) Indian politician

On special role of caste in Indian society in page=12.
History, Society, and Land Relations: Selected Essays

People , Communication , Departure , Fight

“Our founding fathers knew that if we went this direction, there was no more moral compass and you won’t be able to explain to your children — you’ll have to face the fact that we lost holding the line on one of the most principle issues in the Bible, and that is sex is not about fun. If you want to have fun, read a book, go see a movie. Sex is about the procreation of children. It’s a sacred responsibility that is meant by God to have men and women commit their lifetime to children.”

Jerome Corsi (1946) American conservative author

"Tea party speaker: ‘Well, they want to call me a racist? Go ahead’" http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/28/tea-party-speaker-well-they-want-to-call-me-a-racist-go-ahead/ www.rawstory.com (2013-8-23)

Women , Men , God , Children

“We are keenly in sympathy with the representatives of Labour. We have too few of them in the House of Commons. …The Liberal party, high and low, have discovered, if they ever forgot it, that the real road to success…lies in adhering to the old principles of the party.”

Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to Liberals in Belmont (2 January 1903), quoted in John Wilson, C.B.: A Life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (London: Constable, 1973), p. 394
Leader of the Opposition

Success , Housing

“Suppose two politicians are running for president, and one goes through the farm section and is asked, "What are you going to do about the farm question?" And he knows right away - bang, bang, bang. Now he goes to the next campaigner who comes through. "What are you going to do on the farm problem?" "Well, I don't know. I used to be a general, and I don't know anything about farming. But it seems to me it must be a very difficult problem, because for twelve, fifteen, twenty years people have been struggling with it, and people say that they know how to solve the farm problem. And it must be a hard problem. So the way I intend to solve the farm problem is to gather around me a lot of people who know something about it, to look at all the experience that we have had with this problem before, to take a certain amount of time at it, and then to come to some conclusion in a reasonable way about it. Now, I can't tell you ahead of time what solution, but I can give you some of the principles I'll try to use - not to make things difficult for individual farmers, if there are any special problems we will have to have some way to take care of them," etc., etc., etc.
Now such a man would never get anywhere in this country, I think. It's never been tried, anyway. This is in the attitude of mind of the populace, that they have to have an answer and that a man who gives an answer is better than a man who gives no answer, when the real fact of the matter is, in most cases, it is the other way around. And the result of this of course is that the politician must give an answer. And the result of this is that political promises can never be kept. It is a mechanical fact; it is impossible. The result of that is that nobody believes campaign promises. And the result of that is a general disparaging of politics, a general lack of respect for the people who are trying to solve problems, and so forth. It's all generated from the very beginning (maybe - this is a simple analysis). It's all generated, maybe, by the fact that the attitude of the populace is to try to find the answer instead of trying to find a man who has a way of getting at the answer.”

Richard Feynman book The Meaning of It All

lecture III: "This Unscientific Age"
The Meaning of It All (1999)

People , Way , Question , Problem

“In the stupendous rush of change which is coming on the human world as a result of the present tornado of upheaval, ancient India's culture, attacked by European modernism, overpowered in the material field, betrayed by the indifference of her children, may perish for ever along with the soul of the nation that holds it in its keeping…. Each nation is a Shakti or power of the evolving spirit in humanity and lives by the principle which it embodies. India is the Bharata Shakti, the living energy of a great spiritual conception, and fidelity to it is the very principle of her existence…. To follow a law or principle involuntarily or ignorantly or contrary to the truth of one's consciousness is a falsehood and a self-destruction. To allow oneself to be killed, like the lamb attacked by the wolf, brings no growth, farthers no development, assures no spiritual merit. Concert or unity may come in good time, but it must be an underlying unity with a free differentiation, not a swallowing up of one by another or an incongruous and inharmonious mixture. Nor can it come before the world is ready for these greater things. To lay down one's arms in a state of war is to invite destruction and it can serve no compensating spiritual purpose…. India is indeed awaking and defending herself, but not sufficiently and not with the whole-heartedness, the clear sight and the firm resolution which can alone save her from the peril. Today it is close; let her choose,… for the choice is imperatively before her, to live or to perish.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

December, 1918
India's Rebirth

War , Children , Truth , World

“The south repudiates the idea that a pecuniary dependence on the federal government is one of the legitimate means of holding the states together. A moneyed interest in the government is essentially a base interest; and just so far as it operates to bind the feelings of those who are subjected to it to the government,—just so far as it operates in creating sympathies and interests that would not otherwise exist,—is it opposed to all the principles of free government, and at war with virtue and patriotism. Sir, the link which binds the public creditors, as such, to their country, binds them equally to all governments, whether arbitrary or free. In a free government, this principle of abject dependence, if extended through all the ramifications of society, must be fatal to liberty.”

Robert Hayne (1791–1839) American politician

Hayne's Speech on Mr. Foot's Resolution, January 21, 1830, page 9.

Money , War , Feeling , Idea

“Occasionally one speaks… of signals or signal chains. It should be noted that the word signal means the transmission of signs and hence concerns the very principle of causal order…”

Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) American philosopher

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928, tr. 1957)

“These issues are very complex and are best left to a full treatment of the principle of rectification. In the absence of such a treatment applied to a particular society, one cannot use the analysis and theory presented here to condemn any particular scheme of transfer payments, unless it is clear that no considerations of rectification of injustice could apply to justify it. Although to introduce socialism as the punishment for our sins would be to go too far, past injustices might seem to be so great as to make necessary in the short run a more extensive state in order to rectify them.”

Robert Nozick book Anarchy, State, and Utopia

Source: (1974), p. 232 http://books.google.com/books?id=fVITAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT139

Past

“Remarkably, only a handful of fundamental physical principles are sufficient to summarize most of modern physics.”

Michio Kaku book Hyperspace

Source: Hyperspace (1995), Ch.15 Conclusion

“Analysis of the mathematical form and underlying principles of games was made by von Neumann " as early as 1928. In this early work von Neumann was not so much interested in executive-type problems as he was in the logical foundations of quantum mechanics. It was not until 1944, when von Neumann and Morgenstern published their now well known Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, that the mathematical treatment of games "took fire."”

C. West Churchman (1913–2004) American philosopher and systems scientist

Source: 1940s - 1950s, Introduction to Operations Research (1957), p. 519: Partly cited in: E. Roy Weintraub (1992) Toward a history of game theory. p. 235

Behavior , Game , Mathematics , Problem

“Banda Singh was impelled by the purest of motives in consecrating himself for the liberation and independence of his people and was an embodiment of selflessness. He always lived up to the principles: ‘Wishing the advancement of the Panth, walking in the path of dharma, fearing sin, living up to truth,’ as enjoined by Guru Govind Singh, who never considered lying, intrigue and treachery as part and parcel of politics.”

Banda Singh Bahadur (1670–1716) Sikh military commander

Life Of Banda Singh Bahadur Based On Contemporary And Original Records Dr. Ganda Singh" https://archive.org/stream/LifeOfBandaSinghBahadurBasedOnContemporaryAndOriginalRecordsDr.GandaSingh/Life+of+Banda+Singh+Bahadur+Based+on+Contemporary+and+Original+Records+-+Dr.+Ganda+Singh_djvu.txt

People , Truth , Fear , Lying

“The Muslim Mashaikh were as keen on conversions as the Ulama, and contrary to general belief, in place of being kind to the Hindus as saints would, they too wished the Hindus to be accorded a second class citizenship if they were not converted. Only one instance, that of Shaikh Abdul Quddus Gangoh, need be cited because he belonged to the Chishtia Silsila considered to be the most tolerant of all Sufi groups. He wrote letters to Sultan Sikandar Lodi, Babur and Humayun to re-invigorate the Shariat and reduce the Hindus to payers of land tax and Jiziyah. To Babur he wrote,
“Extend utmost patronage and protection to theologians and mystics… that they should be maintained and subsidized by the state… No non-Muslim should be given any office or employment in the Diwan of Islam. Posts of Amirs and Amils should be barred to them. Furthermore, in confirmity with the principles of the Shariat they should be subjected to all types of indignities and humiliations. The non-Muslims should be made to pay Jiziyah, and Zakat on goods be levied as prescribed by the law. They should be disallowed from donning the dress of the Muslims and should be forced to keep their Kufr concealed and not to perform the ceremonies of their Kufr openly and freely… They should not be allowed to consider themselves equal to the Muslims.””

Abdul Quddus Gangohi (1456–1537) Sufi poet

Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 6

Law

“Let it be, that should be the motto of all public powers, since the world was civilized … That we cannot grow except by lowering our neighbors is a detestable notion! Only malice and malignity of heart is satisfied with such a principle and our (national) interest is opposed to it. Let it be, for heaven's sake! Let it be!”

Marc-René de Voyer de Paulmy d'Argenson

Laissez faire, telle devrait être la devise de toute puissance publique, depuis que le monde est civilisé ... Détestable principe que celui de ne vouloir grandir que par l'abaissement de nos voisins! Il n'y a que la méchanceté et la malignité du coeur de satisfaites dans ce principe, et l’intérêt y est opposé. Laissez faire, morbleu! Laissez faire!!
Marc-René de Voyer de Paulmy d'Argenson. Diary of René de Voyer, (1736); As quoted in J.M. Keynes, 1926, "The End of Laissez Faire". Argenson's Mémoirs were published only in 1858, ed. Jannet, Tome V, p. 362. See A. Oncken (Die Maxime Laissez faire et laissez passer, ihr Ursprung, ihr Werden, 1866)
Alternative translation:
Laissez faire ought to be the motto of every public authority
Quoted in: Mark Skousen. The Making of Modern Economics, (2009), p. 48

World , Heart

“Let's finally try to talk about a system that transforms all the social organism into a work of art, in which the entire process of work is included, whether it's work by Francisco Goya or Kounellis or mine, as well as agriculture, the sciences, or education or technology, something in which the principle of production and consumption really takes on a form of quality. One must not only transform the creation of paintings or sculptures, but the entire social form. It's a gigantic program.”

Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) German visual artist

Quote of ‎Joseph Beuys, from The felt hat: Joseph Beuys, a life told, Lucrezia De Domizio Durini, p. 201
1980's

Education , Art , Science , Painting

“You meet them, you see them, you understand them and you know what they stand for; and whether stand for some principles, like Ramana Maharishi, Swami Muktananda, and Sai Baba. You can’t have anything but admiration for such great men. You learn from them. For instance, Mahesh Yogi, he teaches you meditation and it’s great science and great yoga. So, as a person interested in yoga or spiritualism. I came to know them, and to be in their company.”

Ramnath Goenka (1904–1991) Indian politician

Ramnath Goenka’s rare Interview

Men , Understanding , Learning , Science

“Many workers in the biological sciences — physiologists, psychologists, sociologists — are interested in cybernetics and would like to apply its methods and techniques to their own specialty. Many have, however, been prevented from taking up the subject by an impression that its use must be preceded by a long study of electronics and advanced pure mathematics; for they have formed the impression that cybernetics and these subjects are inseparable.
The author is convinced, however, that this impression is false. The basic ideas of cybernetics can be treated without reference to electronics, and they are fundamentally simple; so although advanced techniques may be necessary for advanced applications, a great deal can be done, especially in the biological sciences, by the use of quite simple techniques, provided they are used with a clear and deep understanding of the principles involved. It is the author’s belief that if the subject is founded in the common-place and well understood, and is then built up carefully, step by step, there is no reason why the worker with only elementary mathematical knowledge should not achieve a complete understanding of its basic principles. With such an understanding he will then be able to see exactly what further techniques he will have to learn if he is to proceed further; and, what is particularly useful, he will be able to see what techniques he can safely ignore as being irrelevant to his purpose.”

W. Ross Ashby (1903–1972) British psychiatrist

Preface
An Introduction to Cybernetics (1956)

Mathematics , Idea , Understanding , Knowledge

“It is customary to define psychiatry as a medical specialty concerned with the study, diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses. This is a worthless and misleading definition. Mental illness is a myth. Psychiatrists are not concerned with mental illnesses and their treatments. In actual practice they deal with personal, social and ethical problems in living.
I have argued that, today, the notion of a person "having a mental illness" is scientifically crippling. It provides professional assent to a popular rationalization — namely that problems in living experienced and expressed in terms of so-called psychiatric symptoms are basically similar to bodily diseases.
Moreover, the concept of mental illness also undermines the principle of personal responsibility, the ground on which all free political institutions rest.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

Conclusions.
The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct (1961)

Disease , Problem , Study , Personality

“I now imagine a quantum theoretician who may even admit that the quantum-theoretical description refers to ensembles of systems and not to individual systems, but who, nevertheless, clings to the idea that the type of description of the statistical quantum theory will, in its essential features, be retained in the future. He may argue as follows: True, I admit that the quantum-theoretical description is an incomplete description of the individual system. I even admit that a complete theoretical description is, in principle, thinkable. But I consider it proven that the search for such a complete description would be aimless. For the lawfulness of nature is thus constituted that the laws can be completely and suitably formulated within the framework of our incomplete description.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

"Einstein's Reply to Criticisms" (1949)

Law , Imagination , Search , Idea

“The party which Lenin forged and led was really not a party, in the customary sense of the word. It was more of an ‘order,’ in the sense in which Hitler called his National-Socialist Party ‘ein Orden,’ bound by the members’ unshakable loyalty to their leader and one another, but subject to no other principle and responsible to no other constituency. Genuine political parties strive to enlarge their membership, whereas these pseudo-parties—the Bolshevik one first, and the Fascist and the Nazi ones later—were exclusive in that they treated membership as a privilege, restricting it to persons who met certain ideological as well as class or racial criteria. Elements regarded as unworthy were purged.”

Richard Pipes (1923–2018) American historian

Source: Three “Whys” of the Russian Revolution (1995), pp. 38-39

Sense , Personality , Loyalty

“The homeostatic principle does not apply literally to the functioning of all complex living systems, in that in counteracting entropy they move toward growth and expansion.”

Daniel Katz (1903–1998) American psychologist

Source: The Social Psychology of Organizations (1966), p. 23

“It is absurd to assume that upon the rigid earth-crust the organic originated from the inorganic. In order to explain the nascence of the lowest organisms on the earth-crust, one must assume an already existing organising principle or a thought-process, under conditions that would render organic combinations impossible. We must accordingly assume that these conditions are valid only for the life-process in the actual state of the earth's surface, and only so far as we can explain them may we estimate the possibility of life-processes under other conditions.”

Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) German mathematician

Gesammelte Mathematische Werke (1876)

Life

“There is no smoke without fire, and there is no ethically repugnant principle without logic.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

How to murder a Bolivian boy http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/19/jun01/daniels.htm (June 2001).
New Criterion (2000 - 2005)

“Don't be misled by the current atheistic drive to take God out of the classroom. "Separation of church and state" was to keep creeds out of the curriculum, but not God. It would be as unconstitutional to teach irreligion in the classroom as it would be to emphasize some particular religion. As teachers we are not to teach a particular faith, but parents are within their rights when they insist that the classroom is not be used by those few teachers who seek to destroy faith. Teachers who believe that teaching atheism is a necessary part of a good education are not really qualified to teach in a Judaic-Christian culture. They are entitled to be atheists but, as public employees, they are not entitled to teach it. If they do, they are violating an important constitutional principle.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

God , Education , Faith , Religion

“The lamest defence I could offer — one used by many supporters of the war as they slam into reverse gear — is that I still support the principle of invasion, it's just the Bush administration screwed it up. … The evidence should have been clear to me all along: the Bush administration would produce disaster.”

Johann Hari (1979) British journalist

After three years, after 150,000 dead, why I was wrong about Iraq, JohannHari.com, March 18, 2006, 2007-01-26 http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=831,

War , Support

“The key issues facing managers in sales are no different than those faced by managers in other disciplines. Sales managers say they face problems such as "It takes us too long… we need to reduce the error rate." They want to know, "How do customers perceive us?" These issues are no different than those facing managers trying to improve in other fields. The systematic approaches to improvement are identical…. There should be no reason our familiar principles of quality and process engineering would not work in the sales process.”

Joseph M. Juran (1904–2008) Quality guru

Joseph M. Juran in: Paul H. Selden (1997), Sales Process Engineering: A Personal Workshop, Milwaukee, WI: ASQ Quality Press, pp. xxi–xxii

Error , Problem

“Our war against terror is proceeding according to the principles that I have made clear to all. Any person involved in committing or planning terrorist attacks against the American people becomes an enemy of this country and a target of American justice.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2003, Mission Accomplished (May 2003)

War , People , Justice , Personality

“True heroism is alike positive and progressive. It sees in right the duty which should dominate, and in truth the principle which should prevail. And hence it never falters in the faith that always and everywhere sin must be repressed, and righteousness exalted.”

John McClellan Holmes (1834–1911) US Christian minister and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 312.

Truth , Faith

“At the heart of the book are the functional areas of an industrial firm. Although the data structures are thereby designed according to functional area the integration principle of supra-functional processing of tasks occupies the foreground. This book aims to achieve both a scientifically-based procedural method and a practically relevant, tried and tested approach. The author's experience of developing and introducing integrated information systems in several large industrial firms is incorporated in the treatment presented.”

August-Wilhelm Scheer (1941) German business theorist

August-Wilhelm Scheer (1989) Enterprise-wide Data Modelling: Information Systems in Industry. Springer-Verlag, p. vi.

Books , Heart

“Being an art form, verse cannot be "free" in the sense of having no limitations or guiding principle.”

William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) American poet

As quoted in Free Verse. Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics 2nd ed (1975)
General sources

Art , Sense

“The opponents of EEC membership inside the Labour Party know how much more difficult it would be to foist their brand of left-wing socialism on the British people if we remain part of a Community based on the principles of free enterprise and the mixed economy. We in the Conservative Party must vigorously oppose this ominous development.”

Edward Heath (1916–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–1974)

Speech to the Conservative Group for Europe after the Labour Party conference voted for Britain to leave the European Economic Community, quoted in The Times (9 October 1980), p. 6.
Post-Prime Ministerial

People , Communication , Parting

“These bygone workmen did not serve, they worked. They had an absolute honor, which is honor proper. A chair rung had to be well made. That was an understood thing. That was the first thing. It wasn’t that the chair rung had to be well made for the salary or on account of the salary. It wasn’t that it was well made for the boss, nor for connoisseurs, nor for the boss’ clients. It had to be well made itself, in itself, for itself, in its very self. A tradition coming, springing from deep within the race, a history, an absolute, an honor, demanded that this chair rung be well made. Every part of the chair which could not be seen was just as perfectly made as the parts which could be seen. This was the selfsame principle of cathedrals. … There was no question of being seen or of not being seen. It was the innate being of work which needed to be well done.”

Charles Péguy (1873–1914) French poet, essayist, and editor

Source: Basic Verities, Prose and Poetry (1943), p. 82

History , Spring , Question , Parting

“Let us take first an absurd example: always preferring goods that come on Thursdays to those that come on Wednesdays, solely because of a preference for that particular day of the week. As we shall see, this is not contrary to the principles of rational choice, but it is certainly contrary to reason. The simple preference for Thursdays is a reason, but reason also demands the reason for that reason. And obviously there is none.”

Jon Elster (1940) Norwegian academic

Reason and Rationality (2009)

“We continue to assert the principles of no political preconditions, mutual respect and openness to innovation as the basis of talks with Beijing, while showing goodwill and creating a friendly environment for communication.”

Tien Hung-mao (1938) Taiwanese Minister of Foreign Affairs

Source: Tien Hung-mao (2017) cited in " SEF invites ARATS to Kinmen Island http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2017/01/19/2003663387" on Taipei Times, 19 January 2017.

Communication

“Relativity theory forced the abandonment, in principle, of absolute space and absolute time.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1980s, Laws of Media: The New Science (with Eric McLuhan) (1988), p. 43

Time

“In Korea and Japan, the Chinese example began to find fertile ground as the political and social organization or those regions developed toward civilized complexity. Buddhist monks became the principle carriers of high Chinese culture to Korea and Japan. …The Chinese model, while of the utmost importance, never eclipsed the local differences that made Japan always and Korea sometimes so distinct from China as properly to constitute a separate civilization.”

William H. McNeill book The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community

The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community (1963)

“He’d abolish the bedrock constitutional principle that says if you’re born in the United States, you’re an American citizen. He says that children born in America to undocumented parents are, quote, "anchor babies" and should be deported. Millions of them.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech in (August 25, 2016)

Children , Quotes , Parent , Baby

“Widely dispersed knowledge concerning the important role of basic cooperative processes among living beings may lead to the acceptance of cooperation as a guiding principle both in social theory and as a basis for human behavior. Such a development when it occurs will alter the course of human history.”

W. C. Allee (1885–1955) American zoologist and ecologist

Cooperation among Animals with Human Implications (1951), page 213 (cited in "The Altruism Equation", by Lee Alan Dugatkin (2006), page 58).

Behavior , History , Knowledge

“The dilemma posed by a choice between rules and men largely begs the question. There are, to be sure, times when rules, constraints, commitments, contract or treaty provisions stand in the way and should be transcended because of force majeure, acts of God, some deus ex machina that makes clear that all bets are off. …
If one relies on men of responsibility to make the right choice in crisis among conflicting rules, or to follow an altogether different course for which no precedent exists, there is a danger of creating new precedents and new rules, which may be applied mistakenly under different circumstances. …
The alternative to rules—men, which of course includes women—begs another question. Men have different responsibilities, principles, understandings, interests.”

Charles P. Kindleberger (1910–2003) American economic historian

"Rules vs Men: Lessons from a Century of Monetary Policy", Originally published in Christoph Buchheim, Michael Hutter, and Harold James, eds., Zerrissene Zwischenkriegszeit Beiträge (1994), republished in Comparative Political Economy: A Retrospective (2003)

Women , Men , God , Way

“Now, you think it's a coincidence that on September 11, 2001, we were struck by terrorists an evil that has at its heart the disregard of innocent human life? We who have for several decades killed not thousands but scores of millions of our own children, in disregard of the principle of innocent human life — I don't think that's a coincidence, I think that's a warning. I don't think that's a coincidence, I think that's a shot across the bow. I think that's a way of Providence telling us, "I love you all; I'd like to give you a chance. Wake up! Would you please wake up?"”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

Reaping the Fruits of the Moral Crisis, May 7, 2004. http://www.renewamerica.us/archives/speeches/04_05_07hellewell.htm.
2009

Love , Life , Children , Way

“Both the uncertainty principle and the negentropy principle of information make Laplace's scheme [of exact determinism] completely unrealistic. The problem is an artificial one; it belongs to imaginative poetry, not to experimental science.”

Léon Brillouin (1889–1969) French physicist

[Léon Brillouin, Science and Information Theory, second edition, Academic Press, New York, 1962, 0-48643-918-6, 308]

Imagination , Problem , Science

“Base thy life on principle, not on rules.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 199

Life

“Experience is also a product of chance and individual faculties… I detest greasy objectivity, and harmony, the science that finds everything in order. Carry on, my children, humanity… Science says we are the servants of nature: everything is in order, make love and bash your brains in. Carry on, my children, humanity, kind bourgeois and journalist virgins… I am against systems, the most acceptable system is on principle to have none.”

Tristan Tzara (1896–1963) Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist

1910s, Dada Manifesto', 1918

Love , Children , Making love , Nature

“The military forces of the revolutionary adversary are diffuse. One is never sure whether one has destroyed them unless one is ready to destroy a large portion of the population, and this usually conflicts with the political aim of the war and hence also violates a fundamental Clausewitzian principle”

Anatol Rapoport (1911–2007) Russian-born American mathematical psychologist

Anatol Rapoport (1968), as quoted in: William John Thomas Mitchel (2011) Cloning Terror: The War of Images, 9/11 to the Present. p. viii
1960s

War

“[S]cience is often regarded as the most objective and truth-directed of human enterprises, and since direct observation is supposed to be the favored route to factuality, many people equate respectable science with visual scrutiny—just the facts ma'am, and palpably before my eyes. But science is a battery of observational and inferential methods, all directed to the testing of propositions that can, in principle, be definitely proven false. […] At all scales, from smallest to largest, quickest to slowest, many well-documented conclusions of science lie beyond the strictly limited domain of direct observation. No one has ever seen an electron or a black hole, the events of a picosecond or a geological eon.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Eight Little Piggies

"Muller Bros. Moving & Storage", pp. 200–201
Eight Little Piggies (1993)

People , Truth , Lie , Science

“The earliest achievement of this (of equality and the restriction on the powers of the constitutionally mandated magistrates), the most ancient opposition in Rome, consisted in the abolition of the life-tenure of the presidency of the community; in other words, in the abolition of the monarchy… Not only in Rome (but all over the Italian peninsula) … we find the rulers for life of an earlier epoch superseded in after times by annual magistrates. In this light the reasons which led to the substitution of the consuls for kings in Rome need no explanation. The organism of the ancient Greek and Italian polity through its own action and by a sort of natural necessity produced the limitation of the life-presidency to a shortened, and for the most part an annual, term… Simple, however, as was the cause of the change, it might be brought about in various ways, resolution (of the community),.. or the rule might voluntarily abdicate; or the people might rise in rebellion against a tyrannical ruler, and expel him. It was in this latter way that the monarchy was terminated in Rome. For however much the history of the expulsion of the last Tarquinius, "the proud", may have been interwoven with anecdotes and spun out into a romance, it is not in its leading outlines to be called in question. Tradition credibly enough indicates as the causes of the revolt, that the king neglected to consult the senate and to complete its numbers; that he pronounced sentences of capital punishment and confiscation without advising with his counsellors(sic); that he accumulated immense stores of grain in his granaries, and exacted from the burgesses military labours and task-work beyond what was due… we are (in light of the ignorance of historical facts around the abolition of the monarchy) fortunately in possession of a clearer light as to the nature of the change which was made in the constitution (after the expulsion of the monarchy). The royal power was by no means abolished, as is shown by the fact that, when a vacancy occurred, a "temporary king" (Interrex) was nominated as before. The one life-king was simply replaced by two [one year] kings, who called themselves generals (praetores), or judges…, or merely colleagues (Consuls) [literally, "Those who leap or dance together"]. The collegiate principle, from which this last - and subsequently most current - name of the annual kings was derived, assumed in their case an altogether peculiar form. The supreme power was not entrusted to the two magistrates conjointly, but each consul possessed and exercised it for himself as fully and wholly as it had been possessed and exercised by the king; and, although a partition of functions doubtless took place from the first - the one consul for instance undertaking the command of the army, and the other the administration of justice - that partition was by no means binding, and each of the colleagues was legally at liberty to interfere at any time in the province of the other.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 1, Book II , Chapter 1. "Change of the Constitution" Translated by W.P. Dickson
The History of Rome - Volume 1

Life , People , Justice , Way

“In this administration also it has been necessary at times to issue specific warnings — warnings that we could not stand by and watch the Communists conquer Laos by force, or intervene in the Congo, or swallow West Berlin, or maintain offensive missiles on Cuba. But while our goals were at least temporarily obtained in these and other instances, our successful defense of freedom was due not to the words we used, but to the strength we stood ready to use on behalf of the principles we stand ready to defend. This strength is composed of many different elements, ranging from the most massive deterrents to the most subtle influences. And all types of strength are needed — no one kind could do the job alone.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Remarks Prepared for Delivery at the Trade Mart in Dallas

Freedom , Time , Success

“That no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.”

George Mason (1725–1792) American delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention

Article 15
Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)

People , Justice

“Under such lights as these, which are shed from what the vast majority of thinking men agree is the profoundest and best that is in us, all such systems as we have described display their final moral incompetency. Let us turn now to the new view, the view that abandons both monism and monarchotheism, that abandons creationism in both its forms, takes resort to Final Cause as the primary and only explanatory principle, and holds to an Eternal Pluralism of causal minds, each self-active, though all recognisant of all others, and thus all in their central essence possessed of moral autonomy, the very soul of all really moral being.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Appendix B: The System in its Ethical Necessity and its Practical Bearings, p.399

Men , Soul , Thinking , Light

“[T]he concept of “feedback”, so simple and natural in certain elementary cases, becomes artificial and of little use when the interconnexions between the parts become more complex. When there are only two parts joined so that each affects the other, the properties of the feedback give important and useful information about the properties of the whole. But when the parts rise to even as few as four, if every one affects the other three, then twenty circuits can be traced through them; and knowing the properties of all the twenty circuits does not give complete information about the system. Such complex systems cannot be treated as an interlaced set of more or less independent feedback circuits, but only as a whole.
For understanding the general principles of dynamic systems, therefore, the concept of feedback is inadequate in itself. What is important is that complex systems, richly cross-connected internally, have complex behaviours, and that these behaviours can be goal-seeking in complex patterns.”

W. Ross Ashby (1903–1972) British psychiatrist

Source: An Introduction to Cybernetics (1956), Part I: Mechanism, p. 54 as cited in: Margaret A. Bode (2006) Mind as Machine: A History of Cognitive Science, Volume 1. p.229

Understanding , Nature , Parting

“In this book I try to show how models of self-organization can be applied to many economic phenomena - how the principle of "order from instability," which explains the growth of hurricanes and embryos, can also explain the formation of cities and business cycles; how the principle of "order from random growth" can explain the strangely simple rules that describe the sizes of earth quakes, meteorites, and metropolitan areas. I believe that the ideas of self-organization theory can add substantially to our understanding of the economy; whatever their ultimate usefulness, these ideas are very exciting, and playing around with them is tremendous fun.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

Preface
The Self-Organizing Economy (1996)

Books , Idea , Understanding , Business

“These are some of our American standards. These principles, in the province to which they relate, bestow upon the people all there is to bestow. They recognize in the people all that there is to recognize. They are the ultimates. There is no beyond. They are solely for the benefit and advantage of all the people. If any change is made in these principles it will not be by giving more to the people, but by taking from them something of that which they now have. It cannot be progress. It must be reaction. I do not say that we, as citizens, have always held ourselves to a proper observance of these standards towards each other, but we have nevertheless established them and declared our duty to be obedience to them. This is the American ideal of ordered liberty under the law. It calls for rigid discipline.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Authority and Religious Liberty (1924)

People , Law , Change

“The Jesuit principle: withdrawal from the world—in order to act on the world—was frequently also the principle of genius.”

Vilhelm Ekelund (1880–1949) Swedish poet

Source: The Second Light (1986), p. 22

World

“The science of chemistry rests on two well-established principles: the conservation of matter and the conservation of energy.”

David W. Oxtoby (1951) President of Pomona college

Principles of Modern Chemistry (7th ed., 2012), Ch. 1 : The Atom in Modern Chemistry

Science

“The general point that a political theory is, among other things, a partisan intervention, is well taken. So question about the actual political implication of a theory cannot be excluded as, in principle, irrelevant.”

Raymond Geuss book Philosophy and Real Politics

Source: Philosophy and Real Politics (2008), Chapter 2.

Question

“Constructing a social system that tends to those who agree with it is a piece of cake compared to constructing one that makes those who disagree with it want to obey its principles.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Erik Naggum on Atlas Shrugged http://netsettlement.blogspot.com/2010/01/erik-naggum-on-atlas-shrugged.html

“[I] charged Mr. Pitt with having come into office upon unconstitutional grounds, and upon such principles as were disgraceful to himself, disgusting to the country, and such as must necessarily deprive him and his coadjutors of the confidence of that House.”

Charles James Fox (1749–1806) British Whig statesman

Speech in the House of Commons (12 January 1784), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 75.
1780s

Confidence , Housing , Country

“We can truly say that once the Leader of the Opposition had discovered what the Liberals and the SNP were going to do, she found the courage of their convictions. So, this evening, the Conservative Party, who want the Act repealed and oppose even devolution, will march through the Lobby with the SNP, who want independence for Scotland, and with the Liberals, who want to keep the Act. What a massive display of unsullied principle! The minority parties have walked into a trap. If they win, there will be a general election. I am told that the current joke going round the House is that it is the first time in recorded history that turkeys have been known to vote for an early Christmas.”

James Callaghan (1912–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; 1976-1979

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1979/mar/28/her-majestys-government-opposition-motion in the House of Commons (28 March 1979). In the No confidence debate which brought his government down on 28 March 1979, Callaghan poked fun at the opposition parties and drew attention to their low showing in opinion polls. In the event the Scottish National Party lost 9 of its 11 seats
Prime Minister

History , Courage , Time , Christmas

“The true and best way of learning any Art, is not to see a great many Examples done by another Person, but to possess ones seIf first of the Principles of it, and then to make them familiar, by exercising ones self in the Practice. Far it is Practice alone, that makes a Man perfect in any thing.”

Brook Taylor (1685–1731) English mathematician

New Principles of Linear Perspective (1715, 1749)

Art , Way , Exercises , Learning

“If the confusion of spirits, obsession of consciousness ("obnubilation of…", Fr.), abandonment of religious and moral principles was to become widespread, the consequences could be become such that we would finally see crop up ("on verrait…surgir", Fr.) in the very heart of the civilisation, a new and apalling barbarism capable to engulf (or engulfing, - "engloutir," Fr.) all the acquisitions of the past.”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 37.

Past , Heart

“Empirical research does not, as of yet, seem to have legitimately gotten anyone 100 percent of the way to libertarianism; there remain, at the very least, some public goods and, in principle, the need for economic redistribution. Libertarian philosophy fills the gap between what free-market economists can prove about the undesirable consequences of government intervention and the absolute prohibition of all intervention. Consequentialist and nonconsequentialist arguments for libertarianism may be antithetical in principle, but they are symbiotic in practice.”

Jeffrey Friedman (political scientist) (1959) American political scientist

Source: “What’s wrong with Libertarianism”, p. 444

Way

“I think if Obama is reelected, then that'll be a disaster of immeasurable proportions. If the government takes over large segments of the economy, we will become a socialist state. The salvation of the Republican Party, and of the country and of the world, will be changing the conservative moment to reflect the principles of Abraham Lincoln. The platform on which Lincoln was elected in 1860 quoted part of the Declaration of Independence. Government is based on the consent of the governed.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2010s, Interview with Eric Benson (2012)

World , Quotes , Thinking , Change

“Through violence, you may 'solve' one problem, but you sow the seeds for another.
…
One has to try to develop one's inner feelings, which can be done simply by training one's mind. This is a priceless human asset and one you don't have to pay income tax on!
…
First one must change. I first watch myself, check myself, then expect changes from others.
…
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.
…
I myself feel, and also tell other Buddhists that the question of Nirvana will come later.
There is not much hurry.
If in day to day life you lead a good life, honesty, with love,
with compassion, with less selfishness,
then automatically it will lead to Nirvana.
…
The universe that we inhabit and our shared perception of it are the results of a common karma. Likewise, the places that we will experience in future rebirths will be the outcome of the karma that we share with the other beings living there. The actions of each of us, human or nonhuman, have contributed to the world in which we live. We all have a common responsibility for our world and are connected with everything in it.
…
If the love within your mind is lost and you see other beings as enemies, then no matter how much knowledge or education or material comfort you have, only suffering and confusion will ensue.
…
It is under the greatest adversity that there exists the greatest potential for doing good, both for oneself and others.
…
Whenever Buddhism has taken root in a new land, there has been a certain variation in the style in which it is observed. The Buddha himself taught differently according to the place, the occasion and the situation of those who were listening to him.
…
Samsara - our conditioned existence in the perpetual cycle of habitual tendencies and nirvana - genuine freedom from such an existence- are nothing but different manifestations of a basic continuum. So this continuity of consciousness us always present. This is the meaning of tantra.
…
According to Buddhist practice, there are three stages or steps. The initial stage is to reduce attachment towards life.
The second stage is the elimination of desire and attachment to this samsara. Then in the third stage, self-cherishing is eliminated.
…
The creatures that inhabit this earth-be they human beings or animals-are here to contribute, each in its own particular way, to the beauty and prosperity of the world.
…
To develop genuine devotion, you must know the meaning of teachings. The main emphasis in Buddhism is to transform the mind, and this transformation depends upon meditation. in order to meditate correctly, you must have knowledge.
…
Anything that contradicts experience and logic should be abandoned.
…
The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual's own reason and critical analysis.
…
From one point of view we can say that we have human bodies and are practicing the Buddha's teachings and are thus much better than insects. But we can also say that insects are innocent and free from guile, where as we often lie and misrepresent ourselves in devious ways in order to achieve our ends or better ourselves. From this perspective, we are much worse than insects.
…
When the days become longer and there is more sunshine, the grass becomes fresh and, consequently, we feel very happy. On the other hand, in autumn, one leaf falls down and another leaf falls down. The beautiful plants become as if dead and we do not feel very happy. Why? I think it is because deep down our human nature likes construction, and does not like destruction. Naturally, every action which is destructive is against human nature. Constructiveness is the human way. Therefore, I think that in terms of basic human feeling, violence is not good. Non-violence is the only way.
…
We humans have existed in our present form for about a hundred thousand years. I believe that if during this time the human mind had been primarily controlled by anger and hatred, our overall population would have decreased. But today, despite all our wars, we find that the human population is greater than ever. This clearly indicates to me that love and compassion predominate in the world. And this is why unpleasant events are "news"; compassionate activities are so much a part of daily life that they are taken for granted and, therefore, largely ignored.
…
The fundamental philosophical principle of Buddhism is that all our suffering comes about as a result of an undisciplined mind, and this untamed mind itself comes about because of ignorance and negative emotions. For the Buddhist practitioner then, regardless of whether he or she follows the approach of the Fundamental Vehicle, Mahayana or Vajrayana, negative emotions are always the true enemy, a factor that has to be overcome and eliminated. And it is only by applying methods for training the mind that these negative emotions can be dispelled and eliminated. This is why in Buddhist writings and teachings we find such an extensive explanation of the mind and its different processes and functions. Since these negative emotions are states of mind, the method or technique for overcoming them must be developed from within. There is no alternative. They cannot be removed by some external technique, like a surgical operation."”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

Dzogchen: The Heart Essence of the Great Perfection, Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca, 2004

Love , Life , War , Lie

“To me there is nothing more important in a democracy than free speech and debate. We should debate everything, we should talk about everything, we should engage ideas we aren't comfortable with, and we should let the best ideas win, that's how a healthy society based on rational ideas and a secular government should work, but too often these days it's simply isn't what's happening, and while the far right in this country went off the deep end a while ago, what I've really been affected by is seeing my side, the people on the Left cherry-picking, fact stifling, debate and labeling everyone they disagree with a racist, a bigot, a homophobe, or worse. These aren't liberal principles, much less are they the ideals our founders intended for us to use when they started this country.”

Dave Rubin (1976) American comedian

Dave Rubin Explains The Rubin Report Rules https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97SafVeKoF4 (September 9, 2015)

People , Democracy , Idea , Country

“Plato finds it necessary to separate, for example, "horseness" from "horse" and say that horseness is real and fixed and true and unmoving, while the horse is a mere, unimportant, transitory phenomenon. Horseness is pure Idea. The horse that one sees is a collection of changing Appearances, a horse that can flux and move around all it wants to and even die on the spot without disturbing horseness, which is the Immortal Principle and can go on forever in the path of the Gods of old.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 29

God , Idea , Appearance , Change

“The American war is over; but this far from being the case with the American revolution. On the contrary, nothing but the first act of the drama is closed. It remains yet to establish and perfect our new forms of government and to prepare the principles, morals, and manners of our citizens for these forms of government after they are established and brought to perfection.”

Benjamin Rush (1745–1813) American physician, educator, author

Letter to Price, May 25, 1786

War , Perfection

“In the interest of the dictionaries of the future let me lay down the principle that the Demi-Monde, contrary to the common belief and in spite of what is printed, does not represent the ruck of courtesans, but the class of women that have lost caste.”

Alexandre Dumas, fils (1824–1895) French writer and dramatist, son of the homonym writer and dramatist

Établissons donc ici, pour les dictionnaires à venir, que le Demi-Monde ne représente pas, comme on le croit, comme on l'imprime, la cohue des courtisanes, mais la classe des déclassées.
Preface to Le Demi-Monde (1855), in Théatre complet de Al. Dumas fils (Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1868-98) vol. 2, p. 9; translation from Albert D. Vandam Undercurrents of the Second Empire (London: William Heinemann, 1897) p. 246.

Women , Future

“The recognition of the light of reality within the darkness of abstraction is a contradiction – both the affirmation and the negation of the real at one and the same time. The new philosophy, which thinks the concrete not in an abstract but a concrete way, which acknowledges the real in its reality – that is, in a way corresponding to the being of the real as true, which elevates it into the principle and object of philosophy – is consequently the truth of the Hegelian philosophy, indeed of modern philosophy as a whole.”

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872) German philosopher and anthropologist

Part III, Section 31
Principles of Philosophy of the Future http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/feuerbach/works/future/index.htm (1843)

Truth , Way , Thinking , Reality

“It would be some time before I fully realized that the United States sees little need for diplomacy; power is enough. Only the weak rely on diplomacy. This is why the weak are so deeply concerned with the democratic principle of the sovereign equality of states, as a means of providing some small measure of equality for that which is not equal in fact. Coming from a developing country, I was trained extensively in international law and diplomacy and mistakenly assumed that the great powers, especially the United States, also trained their representatives in diplomacy and accepted the value of it. But the Roman Empire had no need for diplomacy. Nor does the United States. Diplomacy is perceived by an imperial power as a waste of time and prestige and a sign of weakness.”

Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1922–2016) 6th Secretary-General of the United Nations

Unvanquished : A U.S. - U.N. Saga (1999), p. 198.
1990s

Law , Time , Training , Country

“The basic principle of an autocatalytic network is that even though nothing can make itself, everything in the pot has at least one reaction that makes it, involving only other things in the pot. It's a symbiotic system in which everything cooperates to make the metabolism work—the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”

J. Doyne Farmer (1952) American physicist and entrepreneur (b.1952)

The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution (1995)

Parting

“Ye spend all your days contriving forms and rules for the principles of your Faith, while that which profiteth you in all this is to comprehend the good-pleasure of your Lord and unitedly to become well-acquainted with His supreme Purpose.”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

XVII, 2
The Kitáb-I-Asmá

Pleasure , Faith

“It is this which explains nationalism: the principle — so strange and eccentric in the age of agrarian cultural diversity and the 'ethnic' division of labour — that homogeneity of culture is the political bond, that mastery of (and, one should add, acceptability in) a given high culture … is the precondition of political, economic and social citizenship.”

Ernest Gellner (1925–1995) Czech anthropologist, philosopher and sociologist

Nationalism (1997)

Age

“I am now more convinced than ever that the United States — better than any other nation — can meet successfully whatever the future might bring.
These last four years have made me more certain than ever of the inner strength of our country — the unchanging value of our principles and ideals, the stability of our political system, the ingenuity and the decency of our people.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Presidency (1977–1981), Farewell Address (1981)

People , Future , Country

“Some authors state that the last stage in this chain of measurements involves "consciousness," or the "intellectual inner life" of the observer, by virtue of the "principle of psycho-physical parallelism." Other authors introduce a wave function for the entire universe. In this book, I shall refrain from using concepts that I do not understand.”

Asher Peres (1934–2005) Israeli physicist

Life , Books , Understanding , Universe

“Sense of justice is one of the most wonderful ideals of Islam, because as I read in the Quran I find those dynamic principles of life, not mystic but practical ethics for the daily conduct of life suited to the whole world.”

Sarojini Naidu (1879–1949) Indian politician, governor of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh from 1947 to 1949

Sarojini Naidu, Islam, 1 December 2013, Radio Islam http://www.radioislam.org.za/a/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6322&Itemid=47,

Life , World , Justice , Sense

“Watch for those who would use the principles of peace, brotherhood, tolerance, and Christian charity to obscure the conspiratorial aspects of Communist "peace." The peace of Communism partakes of the prison and the grave. Remind professional pacifists who have accepted the paralyzing peace propaganda of the Communists that the same Jesus who taught "love thy enemy" never advocated surrendering to him. The same Jesus who said, "Turn the other cheek" to avoid quarreling and bickering in the ordinary course of life, also said to take a sword to preserve life.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Jesus of Nazareth who cleansed the temple was demonstrating that Right deserves to be defended.
The Naked Communist (1958)

Love , Life , Peace , Communication

“It is not, perhaps, unreasonable to conclude, that a pure and perfect democracy is a thing not attainable by man, constituted as he is of contending elements of vice and virtue, and ever mainly influenced by the predominant principle of self-interest. It may, indeed, be confidently asserted, that there never was that government called a republic, which was not ultimately ruled by a single will, and, therefore, (however bold may seem the paradox,) virtually and substantially a monarchy.”

Alexander Fraser Tytler (1747–1813) Scottish advocate, judge, writer and historian

[Universal History: From the Creation of the World to the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century, Vol. I, Book II, Chapter 6, 216, Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee, Alexander Fraser, Petridge and Company, 1854, http://books.google.com/books?id=6FKHIeUQ2J0C&pg=PA216&vq=It+is+not,+perhaps,+unreasonable+to+conclude,+that+a+pure+and+perfect+democracy&source=gbs_search_r&cad=1_1]

Democracy , Confidence , Perfection

“For philosophy, the whisper of the serpent is no longer a resistible temptation. It is instead a constitutive principle, or foundation. If there is a difference between a Socratic daemon and a diabolical demon, it is not one that matters philosophically. There can be no refusal of any accessible information. This is an assumption so basic that philosophy cannot exist until it has passed beyond question. Ultimate religious transgression is the initiation.”

Nick Land (1962) British philosopher

"What is Philosophy?(Part 2)" http://www.xenosystems.net/what-is-philosophy-part-2a/ (2013)

Question

Quotes about principle page 29

Quotes about principle
page 29