Quotes about Principle
One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
The time is always right to do what's right.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question, "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
It is simply my way of saying that I would rather be a man of conviction than a man of conformity. Occasionally in life one develops a conviction so precious and meaningful that he will stand on it till the end. That is what I have found in nonviolence.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question, "Is it right?
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Even if they try to kill you, you develop the inner conviction that there are some things so precious, some things so eternally true that they are worth dying for. And if a person has not found something to die for, that person isn't fit to live!
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
The actual facts of morality are too much on my side for me to fear that my theory can ever be replaced or upset by any other.
— Arthur Schopenhauer
There can be no justification for choosing any part of that which one knows to be evil.
— Ayn Rand
Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea. That presupposes the ability to think. Thinking is something one doesn't borrow or pawn.
— Ayn Rand
We are not used to persons who do things simply for the love of god whom they don't believe in.
— Ayn Rand
All I know is, unselfishness is the only moral principle, said Jessica Pratt, the noblest principle and a sacred duty and much more important than freedom. Unselfishness is the only way to happiness. I would have everybody who refused to be unselfish shot. To put them out of their misery. They can't be happy anyway.
— Ayn Rand