Nature is always too strong for principle.
All our dignity consists, then, in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavour then to think well; this is the principle of morality.
Article III – The principle of any sovereignty resides essentially in the Nation. No body, no individual can exert authority which does not emanate expressly from it.
The Other is on principle inapprehensible; he flees me when I seek him and possesses me when I flee him.
In affairs of state the principles and the foundations must be truth and justice.
Mankind are so much the same, in all times and places, that history informs us of nothing new or strange in this particular. Its chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human nature.
We must observe that in each one of us there are two ruling and leading principles, which we follow whithersoever they lead; one is the innate desire for pleasures, the other an acquired opinion which strives for the best. These two sometimes agree within us and are sometimes in strife; and sometimes one, and sometimes the other has the greater power.
Striving each day to stay true to our principles is what safeguards our very being.
Art is a way of viewing things independently from the principle of sufficient reason.
We see that a paradigm — that is, the roots of a principle of knowledge — can shed light on certain aspects of reality, while blinding us to others.
I have ever held it as a maxim, never to do that through another, which it was possible for me to execute myself.
So far we have just spoken as simple physicists; now we must rise to metaphysics, by making use of the great principle, little used, commonly, that nothing takes place without sufficient reason, that is, that nothing happens without it being possible for someone who knows enough things to give a reason sufficient to determine why it is so and not otherwise.
That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.
