Top 100 Man Of Principle Quotes
#1. A man who has made up his mind on a given subject twenty-five years ago and continues to hold his political opinions after he has been proved to be wrong is a man of principle; while he who from time to time adapts his opinions to the changing circumstances of life is an opportunist.
A.P. Herbert
#2. I am a man of principle, and one of my basic principles is flexibility.
Everett Dirksen
#3. A good man will find that there is goodness in the world; an honest man will find that there is honesty in the world; and a man of principle will find principle and integrity in the hearts
of others.
Albert Pike
#4. Because what could be more Casablanca? Suddenly Harlow saw that what she'd always wanted was a man of principle. A man of action. A domestic terrorist. Every girl's dream, if she can't have a vampire.
Karen Joy Fowler
#5. The man of principle never forgets what he is, because of what others are.
Bohdi Sanders
#6. A state of war or anarchy, in which law has little force, is so far valuable, that it puts every man on trial. The man of principle is known as such, and even in the fury of faction is respected.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#7. It is much easier to ruin a man of principle than a man of none, for he may be ruined through his scruples. Knavery is supple and can bend; but honesty is firm and upright, and yields not.
Charles Caleb Colton
#9. Now the soul of man is divided into two parts, one of which has a rational principle in itself, and the other, not having a rational principle in itself, is able to obey such a principle. And we call a man in any way good because he has the virtues of these two parts.
Aristotle.
#10. In fact, the underlying principle of the baroque is the idea of transformation, of movement, and animals becoming man, and man becoming animals, and mythology. It was a way to inspire pre-Christian character.
Camille Henrot
#11. It is a principle of his that no man who was not a true gentleman at heart, ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner. He says, no varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself.
Charles Dickens
#12. A man that puts himself on the ground of moral principle, if the whole world be against him, is mightier than all of them.
Henry Ward Beecher
#13. Only people who are assured of daily food can concern themselves with matters of principle and ethic. A man will become a slave rather than starve.
Pearl S. Buck
#14. If true religion is to beam upon us, our principle must be, that it is necessary to begin with heavenly teaching, and that it is impossible for any man to obtain even the minutest portion of right and sound doctrine without being a disciple of Scripture.
John Calvin
#15. In the principle of equality I very clearly discern two tendencies; one leading the mind of every man to untried thoughts, the other prohibiting him from thinking at all.
Alexis De Tocqueville
#16. From a political point of view, there is but one principle, the sovereignty of man over himself. This sovereignty of myself over myself is called Liberty
Victor Hugo
#17. [L]earn how to distinguish the king from royalty; the king is but a man; royalty is the gift of God. Whenever you hesitate as to whom you ought to serve, abandon the exterior, the material for the invisible principle, for the invisible principle is everything.
Alexandre Dumas
#18. Justice requires that you should not place the burdens of one man on the shoulders of another man, even though he is better able to bear them. In plainer words, that you should not make one set of men pay for what is used by another set of men.
Auberon Herbert
#19. The real opposition is that between the ego-bound man, whose existence is structured by the principle of having, and the free man, who has overcome his egocentricity.
Erich Fromm
#20. Man, as a form, bears within him the eternal principle of being, and by economic movement along his endless path his form is also transformed, just as everything that lives in nature was transformed in him.
Kazimir Malevich
#21. Detailed scientific arguments by the authors present a serious challenge to the expositors of the Copernican Principle (that man is merely an impure lump of carbon crawling about on the surface of an insignificant speck of cosmic dust).
David Medved
#22. A man must not only stand for the right principles, but he must also fight for them. Those who fight for principle can be proud of the friends they've gained and the enemies they've earned.
Ezra Taft Benson
#23. It is conceivable that in principle man's motor through-ways resemble the slime trails along which are drawn the gathering mucors that erect the spore palaces, that man's cities are only the ephemeral moment of his spawning
that he must descend upon the orchard of far worlds or die.
Loren Eiseley
#24. Modern civilisation has based its specific foundation on the principle of liberty which states that man is not a mere instrument to be used by others but rather a main autonomous living being.
Altiero Spinelli
#25. Courage is not my leading virtue. I've always avoided change of any sort, operating on the principle of safety first. I married a "safe" man. I've made my living performing humdrum work, work that bored other people so much that they'd pay someone else to do it.
Christina Bartolomeo
#26. Every man's reason is his own rightful umpire. This principle, with that of acquiescence in the will of the majority, will preserve us free and prosperous as long as they are sacredly observed.
Thomas Jefferson
#27. At present we have no clear grasp of the principle that every man should do the work for which he is fitted by nature!
Dorothy L. Sayers
#28. The supreme principle of socialism is that man takes precedence over things, life over property, and hence, work over capital; that power follows creation, and not possession; that man must not be governed by circumstances, but circumstances must be governed by man.
Erich Fromm
#29. The lie, as a virtue, a principle, is eternal; the lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend is immortal
Mark Twain
#30. Man is not a solitary animal, and so long as social Life survives, self-realization cannot be the supreme principle of ethics.
Bertrand Russell
#31. A cardinal principle of good fiction [is]: the theme and the plot of a novel must be integrated - as thoroughly integrated as mind and body or thought and action in a rational view of man.
Ayn Rand
#32. The wise man realistically accepts as part of life and builds a philosophy to meet them and make the most of them. He lives on the principle of nothing attempted, nothing gained and is resolved that if he fails he is going to fail while trying to succeed.
Bill Vaughan
#33. Weak men often from the very principle of their weakness derive a certain susceptibility; delicacy and taste which render them, in those particulars, much superior to men of stronger and more consistent minds, who laugh at them.
Sir Fulke Greville
#34. No more semblance or disemblance, no more God or Man, only an immanent logic of the principle of operativity.
Walter Benjamin
#35. Our principle is: to prevent all command over man by his fellowmen, to, make state, government, laws, or whatsoever form of compulsion existing, a thing of the past, to establish full freedom for all. Anarchism means first and foremost freedom from all government.
Johann Most
#36. The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle - a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game. If the right pressure could be applied to him, he would be cheerfully in favor of polygamy, astrology or cannibalism.
H.L. Mencken
#37. Love is a power, a mighty principle that exists in its own right independent of any individual. Man changes, but the principle of love does not and cannot. Love does not leave men and women. Men and women leave love.
Barry Long
#38. A man may cry out against sin in principle; but he cannot abhor it except by virtue of a godly aversion against it. I have heard many cry out against sin in the pulpit, but who still live with it without any problem in their heart, house, and everyday life.
John Bunyan
#39. The passive receiving of Christ is the process by which a spiritual principle of grace is generated in the will of man.
William Ames
#40. Conscience is the spiritual, supernatural principle in man, and it is not of social origin at all. It is rather the perversion and confusion of conscience that is of social origin.
Nikolai Berdyaev
#41. Marriage ... is the most glorious and most exalting principle of the gospel of Jesus Christ. No ordinance is of more importance and none more sacred and more necessary to the eternal joy of man. Faithfulness to the marriage covenant brings the fullest joy here and glorious rewards hereafter.
Ezra Taft Benson
#42. Business is based on the well-known principle of supply and demand. You want something, the other man has it. The only thing left to settle is the price.
Agatha Christie
#43. The rehabilitation of order as a universal principle, however, suggested at the same time that orderliness by itself is not sufficient to account for the nature of organized systems in general or for those created by man in particular.
Rudolf Arnheim
#44. Aikido is the Way and Principle of harmonizing Heaven, Earth and Man.
Morihei Ueshiba
#45. That every will must consider every other will its equal would be a principle hostile to life, an agent of the dissolution and destruction of man, an attempt to assassinate the future of man, a sign of weariness, a secret path to nothingness.
Friedrich Nietzsche
#46. A man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.
George William Curtis
#47. The same principle leads us to neglect a man of merit that induces us to admire a fool.
[Fr., Du meme fonds dont on neglige un homme de merite l'on sait encore admirer un sot.]
Jean De La Bruyere
#48. The defects of every government and constitution both as to principle and form, must, on a parity of reasoning, be as open to discussion as the defects of a law, and it is a duty which every man owes to society to point them out.
Thomas Paine
#49. Know, O man you are a particle of the supreme feminine being sucked to an obscure vacuum - of a bliss but that we can only name - universe!
Preeth Nambiar
#50. A basic principle of American justice holds that a bad man has the same rights as a good man.
Massad Ayoob
#51. America is today the hope of all honorable men who respect the rights of their fellow men and who believe in the principle of freedom and justice.
Albert Einstein
#52. Tolerance is the last virtue of a man without principle.
G.K. Chesterton
#53. Few things in life can be so appalling as the difference between a dry antiseptic statement of a principle by a well spoken man in a quiet office, and what happens to people when that principle is put into practice.
John Kenneth Galbraith
#54. Adversity is the trial of principle. Without it a man hardly knows whether he is honest or not.
Henry Fielding
#55. The most beautiful sight this earth affords is a man or woman so filled with love that duty is only a name, and its performance the natural outflow and expression of the love which has become the central principle of their life.
J.G. Holland
#56. For you, o broker, there is no other principle but arithmetic. For me, commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred; nor can I detach one duty, like you, from all other duties, and concentrate my forces mechanically on the payment of moneys.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#57. The great principle of Western society is that competition rules here as it rules in everything else. The best man - that is to say, the strongest and cleverest - is likely to get the best woman, in the sense of the most beautiful person.
Lafcadio Hearn
#58. I mean, the more a man was in the Devil's power, the less he would be aware of it, on the principle that a man is still fairly sober as long as he knows he's drunk.
C.S. Lewis
#59. Once all come to know that by the concentration of the mind on one point, on one principle, on one desire, a power is radiated to that point with creative nature and demonstrative abilities, man will think more carefully, more constructively and more efficiently
Harvey Spencer Lewis
#60. Smartass Disciple: Master, why do some people so stubborn and unruly ?
Master of Stupidity: Only when you want them do according to your wish.
Toba Beta
#61. And hence he must be invisible; for a spirit cannot be seen by the eye of man: nor is there any thing in this principle contradictory to reason or experience.
Adam Clarke
#62. It is not the color of the skin that makes the man or the woman, but the principle formed in the soul. Brilliant wit will shine, come from whence it will; and genius and talent will not hide the brightness of its lustre.
Maria W. Stewart
#63. The healing principle is within man himself. Man's power to heal himself, or extend his healing power to others, is measured by his awareness of God in him.
Walter Russell
#64. If a man had a little button sewn on the inner pocket of his coat 'on principle' his otherwise unimportant and quite serviceable action would become charged with importance
it is not improbable that it would result in the formation of a society.
Soren Kierkegaard
#65. The great principle of Justice: prevent crime rather than punish it. All that is needed to execute a guilty man is a firing squad or a hangman. To prevent there being guilty men requires great astuteness.
Augusto Roa Bastos
#66. I should like to know if, taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, you begin making exceptions to it, where will you stop? If one man says it does not mean a Negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man?
Abraham Lincoln
#67. Managing an advertising agency isn't all beer and skittles. After fourteen years of it, I have come to the conclusion that the top man has one principle responsibility: to provide an atmosphere in which creative mavericks can do useful work.
David Ogilvy
#68. On principle' one can do anything and what one does is, fundamentally, a matter of indifference, just as a man's life remains insignificant even though 'on principle' he gives his support to all the 'needs of the times.
Soren Kierkegaard
#69. The universe is not for man alone, but is a theater of evolution for all living beings. Live and let live is its guiding principle. 'Ahimsa Paramo Dharmah' - Non-injury is the highest religion.
Virchand Gandhi
#70. Do I raise the dead when I put him behind bars? Then what'll I do it for? We used to shoot a man who acted like a dog, but honor was real there, you were protecting something. But here? This is the land of the great big dogs, you don't love a man here, you eat him!
Arthur Miller
#71. Separate religion from morality, and you have the true energy for evil within man, the terrible, cruel, devastating, and inhuman principle which naturally lies in his spirit. Here the division of the indivisible punishes itself most awfully.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
#72. Man is not made better by being degraded; he is seldom restrained from crime by harsh measures, except the principle of fear predominates in his character, and then he is never made radically better for its influence.
Dorothea Dix
#73. If I didn't look around it would not be true that somebody had opened the gate with the creaky hinges, and that is a wonderful principle for a man to get hold of. I had got hold of the
Robert Penn Warren
#74. In practice, such trifles as contradictions in principle are easily set aside; the faculty of ignoring them makes the practical man.
Henry Adams
#75. It is the mark of the cultured man that he is aware of the fact that equality is an ethical and not a biological principle
Ashley Montagu
#76. The principle of recognition of evil under all its guises is at the basis of the true education of man.
Boris Sidis
#77. Custom is the principle magistrate of man's life.
Francis Bacon
#78. The thing that is so powerful about the psychedelics is that they perform on demand, which almost in principle you cannot expect of a mystical experience because that would be essentially man ordering God at man's whim, which is not how it's supposed to work.
Terence McKenna
#79. Refuse to be ill. Never tell people you are ill; never own it to yourself. Illness is one of those things which a man should resist on principle at the onset.
Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
#80. An Army is a collection of armed men obliged to obey one man. Every change in the rules which impairs the principle weakens the army.
William Tecumseh Sherman
#81. Winston Churchill was a man of blood and a politico without principle, whose apotheosis serves to corrupt every standard of honesty and morality in politics and history.
Ralph Raico
#82. The greatest of all heroes is One
whom we do not name here! Let sacred silence meditate that sacred matter; you will find it the ultimate perfection of a principle extant throughout man's whole history on earth.
Thomas Carlyle
#83. The only conclusive evidence of a man's sincerity is that he gives himself for a principle. Words, money, all things else, are comparatively easy to give away; but when a man makes a gift of his daily life and practice, it is plain that the truth, whatever it may be, has taken possession of him.
James Russell Lowell
#84. Mahatma Gandhi was a man of peace and non-violence and lived by the Hindu principle of ahimsa, action based on refusal to do harm. As his war-strewn presidency shows, George Bush knows nothing about ahimsa and non-violence. Bush should reconsider this cynical, disrespectful display of symbolism.
Kevin Martin
#85. Nothing will bind the eyes of man quicker than the touch of compromise. A principle not compromised is a principle worth dying for. A dream not compromised is a dream worth living for.
Ogwo David Emenike
#86. We follow ideas and not men, and rebel against this habit of embodying a principle in a man.
Errico Malatesta
#87. Now what is Judge Douglas Popular Sovereignty? It is, as a principle, no other than that, if one man chooses to make a slave of another man, neither that other man nor anybody else has a right to object.
Abraham Lincoln
#88. To me this is the first principle of life, the foundational principle, and a lesson you can't learn at the foot of any wise man: Get up! The art of living is simply getting up after you've been knocked down.
Joe Biden
#89. Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous, and magnificent, yet so viscious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of evil principle and at another as all that can be conceived as noble and godlike.
Mary Shelley
#90. 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?
John Adams
#91. The principle of the brotherhood of man is narcissistic ... for the grounds for that love have always been the assumption that we ought to realize that we are the same the whole world over.
Germaine Greer
#92. The person is only a phenomenon, the principle is behind it. Thus from both sides, simultaneously, we find the breaking down of personalities and the approach towards principles, the Personal God approaching the Impersonal, the personal man approaching the Impersonal Man.
Swami Vivekananda
#93. There was something cold and hard about the man, Nilssen thought - diverting his own ill feeling, as he often did, into a principle of aesthetic distaste.
Eleanor Catton
#94. The point is: whenever there is a conflict between modern technology and the desires of our primitive ancestors, these primitive desires win each time. That's the Cave Man Principle.
Michio Kaku
#95. True gentleness is founded on a sense of what we owe to him who made us and to the common nature which we all share. It arises from reflection on our own failings and wants, and from just views of the condition and duty of man. It is native feeling heightened and improved by principle.
Hugh Blair
#96. Man's principle trait is a readiness to believe anything. Otherwise, how could the Church have survived for almost two thousand years in the absense of universal gullibility?
Umberto Eco
#97. The only stable principle of government is equality according to proportion, and for every man to enjoy his own.
Aristotle.
#98. Always, there was a tiny part of her that wanted to kill any man she knew. On principle.
Gail Carriger
#99. Let the beggar speak for himself. He's in earnest. Haven't we been bred on the principle of self-sacrifice, till we've come to think a man's self is his uncleanest possession?
Bernard Capes
#100. What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other's consent. I say this is the leading principle - the sheet anchor of American republicanism.
Abraham Lincoln
