Josephson Institute  >  Quotations Bank

Quotations: Principle, expediency, values

In matters of style, swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand like a rock.
— Thomas Jefferson, 3rd president (1743-1826)

The time is always right to do what is right.
— Martin Luther King, Jr., civil-rights leader, minister (1929-1968)

Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.
— Isaac Asimov, author and biochemist (1920-1992)

Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
— Proverbs, 22:6

Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.
— G.K. Chesterton, English essayist and poet (1874-1936)

In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.
— Immanuel Kant, Prussian geographer and philosopher (1724-1804)

The essence of morality is the subjugation of nature in obedience of social needs.
— John Morley, British statesman and writer (1838-1923)

Ethics is a code of values which guide our choices and actions and determine the purpose and course of our lives.
— Ayn Rand, Russian-American novelist and philosopher (1905-1982)

Rise above principle and do what is right.
— Walter Heller, American economist (1915-1987)

Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
— Reinhold Niebuhr, American theologian (1892-1971)

The people have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge – I mean of the character and conduct of their rulers.
— John Adams, American Founding Father and second U.S. president (1735-1826)

A politician would do well to remember that he has to live with his conscience longer than he does with his constituents.
— Melvin R. Laird, 20th-century American secretary of defense

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
— Ambrose Bierce, American journalist and writer (1842-1914?), from the Devil's Dictionary

Never create by law what can be accomplished by morality.
— Charles-Louis de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu, French jurist and political philosopher (1689-1755)

Sharing money is what gives it its value.
— Elvis Presley, American rock 'n' roll icon (1935-1977)

Reason alone is insufficient to make us enthusiastic in any matter.
— François duc de la Rochefoucauld, French epigrammatist (1613-1680)

I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.
— Calvin Coolidge, 30th American president (1872-1933)

There is, and always has been, one tremendous ruler of the human race — and that ruler is that combination of the opinions of all, the leveling up of universal sense which is called public sentiment. That is the ever-present regulator and police of humanity.
— attributed to Thomas B. Reed

The police must obey the law while enforcing the law.
— Earl Warren, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (1891-1974)

Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.
— Albert Einstein, Swiss-American mathematician, physicist and public philosopher (1879-1955)

A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sin and suffering.
— Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father and third U.S. president (1743-1826), from a letter to Samuel Kercheval, 1816

The sentiments of men are known not only by what they receive, but what they reject also.
— Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father and third U.S. president (1743-1826), from his Autobiography (1821)

Whatever else may be shaken, there are some facts established beyond warring: virtue is better than vice, truth is better than falsehood, kindness than brutality.
— Quintin Hogg, English merchant and philanthropist (1845-1903)

We talk on principle but we act on interest.
— William Savage Landor, English author (1775-1864)

Expedients are for the hour, but principles are for the ages.
— Henry Ward Beecher, American preacher (1813-1887)

Every man, at the bottom of his heart, wants to do right. But only he can do right who knows right; only he knows right who thinks right; only he thinks right who believes right.
— Tiorio

Values are like fingerprints. Nobody's are the same, but you leave 'em all over everything you do.
— Elvis Presley, American rock 'n' roll icon (1935-1977)

When things go wrong don't go with them.
— Elvis Presley, American rock 'n' roll icon (1935-1977)

Two things fill my mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
— Immanuel Kant, Prussian geographer and philosopher (1724-1804)

When the Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes not that you won or lost, but how you played the Game.
— Grantland Rice, sportswriter

We become just by the practice of just actions, self-controlled by exercising self-control, and courageous by performing acts of courage.
— Aristotle, ancient Greek philosopher

Decide on what you think is right, and stick to it.
— George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans), English novelist and journalist (1819-1880)

A wise man makes his own decisions; the ignorant goes with the crowd.
— Chinese proverb

You are responsible for you.
— English proverb

To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.
— Confucius (K'ung Fu-tzu), Chinese sage (551-479 B.C.)

Fortune lost, nothing lost; courage lost, much lost; honor lost, more lost; soul lost, all lost.
— Dutch proverb

If honor be your clothing, the suit will last a lifetime; but if clothing be your honor, it will soon be worn threadbare.
— William Arnot, preacher and theological writer (1808-1875)

Don't approach a goat from the front, a horse from the back, or a fool from any side.
— Jewish proverb

Before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.
— Harper Lee, American writer

When wealth is lost, nothing is lost. When health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.
— German proverb

A slave shows his true character, not while he is enslaved, but when he becomes a master.
— Jewish proverb

A person's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of her own heart, her next to escape the censures of the world.
— English proverb

If you are an anvil, be patient; if you are a hammer, be strong.
— Kurdish proverb

Control of mental conduct, not skill, is the sign of a matured samurai.
— Japanese proverb