Excellence and Virtue

Excellence is an art won by training and habitation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act but a habit. - Aristotle


Expect excellence and virtue every time.

Not As Good

A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation of temper is always a virtue, but moderation in principle is always a vice. - Thomas Paine


Half wrong is not a virtue.

Ideals

Ideals are like stars: you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the ocean desert of waters, you choose them as your guides and following them you reach your destiny. - Carl Schultz

If you have no ideals you are adrift.

Insure Your Principles

Learn from the earliest days to insure your principles against the perils of ridicule; you can no more exercise your reason if you live in the constant dread of laughter, than you can enjoy your life if you are in the constant terror of death. - Sydney Smith

Treat ridicule like death - ignore it.

No Longer Privileged

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. - Dwight D. Eisenhower


We can't afford privileges because we gave up our principles.

Wishing You Well

A tough lesson in life that one has to learn is that not everybody wishes you well. - Dan Rather


A sound warning from one who acted to promote his agenda, even at the expense of others.

Voyage

Money motivates neither the best people, nor the best in people. It can move the body and influence the mind, but it cannot touch the heart or move the spirit; that is reserved for belief, principle, and morality. - Dee Hock 

Let moral courage launch you; morals guide you; morality keep you on the path; and principles be the foundation of your judgement.

Practical Politics

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. - H. L. Mencken


Yup, that's practical politics. What we need is principled politics.


(Other posts on Government)

Your Time is Limited

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. - Steve Jobs 


Also have the courage to follow your principles.


(Other posts on Principles) 

Uncompromised Integrity

One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.  - Chinua Achebe 


Machiavelli  was wrong.


(Other post on Character) 

Go on the Offensive

No people in history have ever survived who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies. - Dean Acheson 


When you have well integrated principles based on reason ask blunt, hard questions of those who disagree with you. You will be attacked personally (not on your principles) but you may have slowed the progress of vile ideas.


(Other posts on Principles) 

Skepticism

There is no harm in doubt and skepticism, for it is through these that new discoveries are made. - Richard Feynman 


Mr. Feynman does not qualify his statement whether he is talking about ideas, or facts, or principles or theories. Skepticism is good except except over your well thought out principles, because it can only lead to mediocrity at best and insanity at worst.


(Other posts on Principles) 

Reason as a Tool

He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave. - Sir William Drummond 


One cannot make good decisions without having principles from which to use reason to come to an honest conclusion. Principles provide a solid foundation and reason  provides the tools needed  for building.


(Other posts on Reason) 

Watch What You Say

I've had to abandon free market principles to save the free market. - President George W. Bush 


Be sure to never say anything this stupid.


(Other posts on Principles) 

Exceptional Cases

General principles should not be based on exceptional cases. - Robert J. Sawyer 


The trap in inductive logic.

(Other posts on Logic) 

Founding Principles

The challenge is always before us. Whenever we lose sight of the principles that mattered to our founders we run into trouble. - Jesse Helms

Don't be afraid to remind people about the principles that mattered to our founders.

Mankind's Curse

I believe that the worst curse on mankind is the ability to consider ideals as something quite abstract and detached from one's everyday life. - Ayn Rand

Like dirt bikes and atom bombs, there are some things people can do, but shouldn't do.

Obscurity

Be wary of passing the judgment: obscure. To find something obscure poses no difficulty, elephants and poodles find many things obscure. - Georg C. Lichtenberg

If you find an idea obscure then you have a hole in your values.

Principled Politics

There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle. - Alexis de Tocqueville

Still true today except he may be mistaken about "many men of principle."

Principled Opinions

Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all. - Georg C. Lichtenberg

If you are like me and have no desire to be that dull then know that peace of mind also comes from not doubting your opinions. Not blind conviction, but a well founded, consistent, principled foundation for your opinions.