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839b734
|
There are perhaps many causes worth dying for, but to me, certainly, there are none worth killing for.
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misattributed-to-albert-camus
pacifism
principles
war
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Albert Dietrich |
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64588ca
|
Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour ... If at my convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?
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doctrine
ethics
law
morality
principles
religion
soul
steadfastness
temptation
|
Charlotte Brontë |
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d9a3dc7
|
Surround yourself with human beings, my dear James. They are easier to fight for than principles.
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principles
|
Ian Fleming |
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b7409f2
|
When the telephoned me at home on Valentine's Day 1989 to ask my opinion about the Ayatollah Khomeini's , I felt at once that here was something that completely committed me. It was, if I can phrase it like this, a matter of everything I hated versus everything I loved. In the hate column: dictatorship, religion, stupidity, demagogy, censorship, bullying, and intimidation. In the love column: literature, irony, humor, the individual, and the defense of free expression. Plus, of course, friendship--though I like to think that my reaction would have been the same if I hadn't known Salman at all. To re-state the premise of the argument again: the theocratic head of a foreign despotism offers money in his own name in order to suborn the murder of a civilian citizen of another country, for the offense of writing a work of fiction. No more root-and-branch challenge to the values of the Enlightenment (on the bicentennial of the fall of the Bastille) or to the First Amendment to the Constitution, could be imagined. President George H.W. Bush, when asked to comment, could only say grudgingly that, as far as he could see, no American interests were involved...
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bastille
bullying
censorship
demagogy
dictatorship
enlightenment
fascism
fatwa
first-amendment
free-speech
friendship
george-hw-bush
hate
humor
individualism
intimidation
iran
irony
khomeini
literature
love
principles
religion
rushdie
satanic-verses
stupidity
theocracy
united-states
united-states-constitution
washington-post
|
Christopher Hitchens |
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14f7114
|
And here is the point, about myself and my co-thinkers. Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.
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belief
faith
principles
reason
religion
scepticism
science
|
Christopher Hitchens |
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8f38150
|
People can't live with change if there's not a changeless core inside them.
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principles
|
Stephen R. Covey |
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1de007c
|
Feeling without judgement is a washy draught indeed; but judgement untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition.
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principles
religious
|
Charlotte Brontë |
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24ee8e2
|
It is the bungled crime that brings remorse.
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|
principles
regret
remorse
|
P.G. Wodehouse |
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dd82331
|
"Something like this will test you like nothing else," Mac said. "You're going to find out who you are, Harry. You're going to find out which principles you'll stand by to your death--and which lines you'll cross." He took my empty glass away and said, "You're heading into the badlands. It'll be easy to get lost."
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mac-mcanally
principles
|
Jim Butcher |
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25044f4
|
care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold the principles received by me when I was sane, not mad -- as I am now. Laws and principles are not for times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth -- so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane -- quite insane, with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations are all I have at this hour to stand; there I plant my foot.
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morality
principles
steadfastness
|
Charlotte Brontë |
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49d6ede
|
It is the bad people who need to have principles to restrain them.
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principles
restraint
|
T.H. White |
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345669d
|
Every November of my boyhood, we put on red poppies and attended highly patriotic services in remembrance of those who had 'given' their lives. But on what assurance did we know that these gifts had really been made? Only the survivors--the living--could attest to it. In order to know that a person had truly laid down his life for his friends, or comrades, one would have to hear it from his own lips, or at least have heard it promised in advance. And that presented another difficulty. Many brave and now dead soldiers had nonetheless been conscripts. The known martyrs--those who actually, voluntarily sought death and rejoiced in the fact--had been the kamikaze pilots, immolating themselves to propitiate a 'divine' emperor who looked (as Orwell once phrased it) like a monkey on a stick. Their Christian predecessors had endured torture and death (as well as inflicted it) in order to set up a theocracy. Their modern equivalents would be the suicide murderers, who mostly have the same aim in mind. About people who set out to lose their lives, then, there seems to hang an air of fanaticism: a gigantic sense of self-importance unattractively fused with a masochistic tendency to self-abnegation. Not wholesome. The better and more realistic test would therefore seem to be: In what cause, or on what principle, would you your life?
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|
causes
childhood
christian-martyrs
christianity
comrades
conscription
death
fanaticism
friends
kamikaze
martyrdom
martyrs
masochism
memorials
november
orwell
patriotism
poppies
principles
religion
sacrifice
self-abnegation
self-importance
soldiers
suicide
suicide-attack
theocracy
torture
ugliness
war
|
Christopher Hitchens |
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74cf49c
|
What should have died along with communism is the belief that modern societies can be run on a single principle, whether that of planning under the general will or that of free-market allocations.
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politics
principles
society
|
Charles Taylor |
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5d88636
|
A person could resist popular belief and stand up for personal principles, and though there may be consequences, not everything would necessarily be lost. In fact, something important might be gained, if only within oneself.
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principles
|
Jean M. Auel |
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54773ad
|
But what [Orwell] illustrates, by his commitment to language as the partner of truth, is that 'views' do not really count; that it matters not what you think, but how you think; and that politics are relatively unimportant, while principles have a way of enduring, as do the few irreducible individuals who maintain allegiance to them.
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|
orwell
politics
principles
truth
|
Christopher Hitchens |
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c1c2757
|
Some people are pragmatists, taking things as they come and making the best of the choices available. Some people are idealists, standing for principle and refusing to compromise. And some people just act on any whim that enters their heads. I wonder which one YOU are. I pragmatically turn my whims into principles!
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pragmatist
principles
realist
spontaneity
thinking
thoughts
whimsical
|
Bill Watterson |
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24f6cb5
|
Reforms will come as all great reforms have always come in ridding us of evils against both man and animal--not as we change our moral principles but as we discern and accept the implications of principles already held.
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morality
principles
reform
|
Matthew Scully |
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fa96e96
|
Drizzt felt the despair most keenly. For all the trials of his hard life, the drow had held faith for ultimate justice. He had believed, though he never dared to admit it, that his unyielding faith in his precious principles would bring him the reward her deserved. Now, there was this, a struggle that could only end in death, where one victory brought only more conflict.
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faith
principles
|
R.A. Salvatore |
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0a289ed
|
Oh, those grumblers! They all take principles as motives and dare not follow their desires.
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|
grumblers
principles
|
Fyodor Dostoyevsky |
|
8e2f919
|
But in his years among the drow, Drizzt Do'Urden had learned to look beyond physical beauty and physical attraction. Drizzt did not separate the physical from the emotional. He was a superb fighter because he fought with his heart and would no sooner battle merely for the sake of battle than he would mate for the sake of the physical act.
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love
physical
principles
|
R.A. Salvatore |
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165ce4e
|
We have power as consumers. We can exercise that power all the time by not choosing to invest time, energy or funds to support the production of mass media images that do not reflect life-enhancing values, that undermine a love ethic.
|
|
change
consummerism
generosity
humanity
love
optimism
principles
society
values
|
bell hooks |
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f73ce59
|
In my stubborn youth, I believed that I could stand alone, that I was strong enough to conquer my enemies with sword and with principles. Arrogance convinced me that by sheer determination, I could conquer helplessness itself. Stubborn and foolish youth, I must admit, for when I look back on those years now, I see quite clearly that rarely did I stand alone and rarely did I have to stand alone. Always there were friends, true and dear, lending me support even when I believed I did not want it, and even when I did not realize they were doing it.
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|
fantasy
forgotten-realms
friendship
principles
|
R.A. Salvatore |
|
d4b6db4
|
It makes me angry sometimes, it's a visceral thing - how you come to despise your own words in your ears not because they aren't genuine, but because they are; because you've said them so many times, your 'principles', your 'ideals' - and so damned little in the world has changed because of them.
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principles
words
|
Joyce Carol Oates |
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68bd543
|
How many close encounters with death can one person survive? At the age of 21, I had surpassed more than 10 such close encounters with death, which began when I was but 5 years of age. This enemy who has been hotly pursuing me for more than 16 years has no shame to his game at all. At least with me there were certain things I would've never done, and knowingly hurt a child was just one of them.
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|
death
enemy
hot-pursuit
near-misses
principles
street-code
survival
|
Drexel Deal |