"Moral principle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... composed of molasses, aquafortis, turpentine, and various other drugs, and instructed me to take a wine-glass full of it every fifteen minutes. I never took but one dose; that was enough; it robbed me of all moral principle, and awoke every unworthy impulse of my nature. Under its malign influence my brain conceived miracles of meanness, but my hands were too feeble to execute them; at that time, had it not been that my strength had surrendered to a succession ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... from wrath to friendship with the true instinct of her little heart of gold. A heart which, though it had been tossed about on a sea of blood, and had never been graven with so much as one tender word or one moral principle from the teachings of any creature, was still gold, despite all; no matter the bruises and the stains and the furnace-heats that had done their best to harden it into bronze, to debase ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... whispers of having been on the very verge of committing a fatal crime; she was an object of fear to all who knew the dark hints which had been let fall about her, and there were some that believed—Why, what was this but an instance of the total obliquity and degeneration of the moral principle? and to what could it be owing, but to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... moral principle is just the opposite. The Chinese, amidst obstacles and embarrassments, always enjoin siao-sin, which means, "abate thy affections." (Huc, "L'Empire ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... first sight you might appear to have no claim. Should you ever be so circumstanced as to be beyond the control of the law, you will, of course, be able to take whatever you want; because there will be nothing then that will not belong to you. This, my friends, is a grand moral principle; and, as illustrative of it, we have an example (as schoolboys say in their themes) in Alexander the Great; and besides, in all other conquerors that have ever lived, from Nimrod down to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... said to be only a witness or spectator and not an actor. The Rishis understood by the soul the being to whom the mind, the senses, etc., all belong. Could the idea of the inactive and unsinning Soul have arisen from observation of the moral principle of Conscience which discriminates between right and wrong, and acts, therefore, as an impartial judge, or watches everything like an uninterested spectator? European moralists generally attribute two other functions to the Conscience, viz., impelling us to do the right and avoid the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... that Charles derived whatever moral principle and sensitiveness of conscience that he possessed from the influence of his mother in his early years. She was a faithful and devoted Catholic; she honestly and firmly believed that the rites and usages of the Catholic Church were divinely ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... contrary, to act in accordance with the fitness of things, as it is to act in accordance with what we see and hear. It is the tendency so to act, that alone renders human society possible, in the absence of high moral principle. In order to live, a man must so act with reference to outward nature; still more must he so act, in order to possess human fellowship, physical comfort, transient enjoyment, of however low a type; and the most depraved wretch that walks the earth purchases ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... the dangerous experiment of resisting his own inward convictions; and this new impulse to ambition, combined with the strong temptation of variety in love, met the ardent young man weakened in moral principle, and unfettered by laws of the land. The change wrought upon him ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... moment lose sight of this fact. We go into this war not merely to sustain the government and defend the Constitution. There is a moral principle involved. How came that government in danger? What has brought this wicked war, with all its evils and horrors, upon us? Whence comes the necessity for this uprising of the people? To these questions, there can be but one answer. SLAVERY HAS DONE IT. That accursed system, which has already ...
— The Abolition Of Slavery The Right Of The Government Under The War Power • Various
... foreign phrase. The English girl might have allied herself with a far worse companion; for, in spite of defects which resembled Alma's own, vagueness of purpose, infirmity of will, Miss Steinfeld had a fund of moral principle which made her talk wholesome and her aspirations an influence for good. She imagined herself in love with an artist whom she had seen only two or three times, and no strain could have been more exalted than that in which she confided her romance to the sympathetic Alma. Sympathetic, that ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... English critics see only, or chiefly, in the fearful and momentous conflict in which we are engaged, "a bursting of the bubble of Democracy"! Shall we challenge now the intelligence or the moral principle, the lack of one or the other of which is betrayed in this sneering and malignant representation—this utter misrepresentation—of the catastrophe which has befallen our nation? Intelligent Englishmen know full well that the issue raised among ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... with you. "The best work at the best prices" is no unworthy motto. The Authors' Society, indeed, tries to put this non-moral principle of valuation upon an ethical basis. It says, for instance, that if the publisher reckons his office expenses in the cost of production, then the author has a right to reckon his, even including any journeys or researches he may have had to make in order ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... possessed Herculean strength, activity almost as remarkable, a practised courage, and a controlling mind. He was in the prime of manhood, and spoke several languages. He was a man, according to Sidonia's views, of high moral principle, entirely trustworthy. He was too valuable an instrument to allow to run to seed as the strolling manager of a caravan of tumblers; and it is not improbable that Sidonia would have secured his services, even if he had not become acquainted with the Baroni family. But they ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... to be examined into is, has this government of the United States set an example of honour, good faith, and moral principle, to those who are subjected to it?—has it, by so behaving, acted favourably upon the morals of the people, and corrected the vices and errors of the monarchical institutions which the Americans hold ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... into two castes, as well as the use of force in government and war, are opposed to every moral principle professed by our modern society. Yet the cultivated and advanced men of the day ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... which disallows action before us. Animal instincts give us pleasure—as the industry of bees—without reference to morals; and in like manner human actions are a pleasure to us when we consider in them only the relation of means to ends. But if a moral principle be added to these, and impropriety be discovered, if the idea of moral agent comes in, a deep indignation succeeds our pleasure, which no intellectual propriety can remedy. We must not call to mind too vividly that Richard III., Iago, and Lovelace are men; otherwise our sympathy for them infallibly ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Balder's difficulty. Possessed of a strong, comprehensive mind, he had made a providence of himself; confounded intelligence with integrity; used the moral principle not as a law of action but as a means of insight. The temptation so to do is strong in proportion as the mind is greatly gifted. But experience shows no good results from yielding to it. Blind moral instinct, if not safer, ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... exercised jurisdiction over the coast tribes and who, hearing that there was trouble in the bay, had come hither, bringing with him a sufficient following to enforce his decrees. Through this man shone something of the high moral principle so often to be observed in responsible African chiefs, and to him Ayres appealed. Hearing the story he decided in favor of the colonists, saying to Peter, "Having sold your country and accepted payment, you ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... still kept up, and, while the member of the primeval tribe feels he has no right to rob or murder within the limits of his tribe, he has no compunction whatever about robbing or murdering or injuring the members of some other tribe. So the moral principle in its practical working is limited to the range of the sympathy of the tribe, which does not go beyond the tribal limits. We see how that principle works still in the world, from the beginning clear up to the highest reaches which ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... his entire empire who gives so many hours per diem to his work. His nature is manifestly deeply religious and, in every sentence he speaks, evidence of his consciousness that the policeman's club cannot take the place of religious and moral principle is revealed. His frequent appeal for Divine aid in the discharge of his duties is prompted by the conviction that the heavier the duty the more need there is of ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... description the compositions of Gay do not always conform. For a fable, he gives, now and then, a tale, or an abstracted allegory; and, from some, by whatever name they may be called, it will be difficult to extract any moral principle. They are, however, told with liveliness; the versification is smooth; and the diction, though, now and then, a little constrained by the measure or the rhyme, is ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson |
