Principal Quotes - Page 8

• An interesting fiction... however paradoxical the assertion may appear... addresses our love of truth- not the mere love of facts expressed by true names and dates, but the love of that higher truth, the truth of nature and principals, which is a primitive law of the human mind.

  James F. Cooper

  Law, Names, Interesting

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• Men are driven by two principal impulses, either by love or by fear.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Inspirational, Men, Two

  Niccolo Machiavelli (2003). “Discourses on Livy”, p.302, OUP Oxford

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• Hardly a pure science, history is closer to animal husbandry than it is to mathematics in that it involves selective breeding. The principal difference between the husbandryman and the historian is that the former breeds sheep or cows or such and the latter breeds (assumed) facts. The husbandryman uses his skills to enrich the future, the historian uses his to enrich the past. Both are usually up to their ankles in bullshit.

  Tom Robbins

  Science, Animal, Past

  Tom Robbins (2003). “Another Roadside Attraction”, p.127, Bantam

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• Jesus was not content to derive his ethics from the scriptures of his upbringing. He explicitly departed from them. [...] Since a principal thesis of this chapter is that we do not, and should not, derive our morals from scripture, Jesus has to be honoured as a model for that very thesis.

  Richard Dawkins

  Jesus, Departed, Scripture

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.284, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• You in the back," said the principal. "Don't think you can hide. Tell me. What would you like to be?" "Dangerous," said the hidden girl, without a second's hesitation.

  Kirsten Miller

  Girl, Thinking, Said

  Kirsten Miller (2011). “Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City”, p.18, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• All scholarship, like all science, is an ongoing, open-ended discussion in which all conclusions are tentative forever, the principal value and charm of the game being the discovery of the totally unexpected.

  Hugh Nibley

  Discovery, Games, Forever

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• The problem with a beautiful woman is that she makes everyone around her feel hopelessly masculine, which if you’re already male to begin with poses no particular problem. But if you’re anyone else, your whole sexual identity gets dragged into the principal’s office: “So what’s this I hear about you prancing around, masquerading as a woman?” You are answerless. You are sitting on your hands. You are praying for your breasts to grow, your hair to perk up.

  Lorrie Moore

  Beautiful, Hair, Hands

  FaceBook post by Lorrie Moore from Sep 12, 2014

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• The great object of life is Sensation - to feel that we exist - even though in pain - it is this "craving void" which drives us to gaming - to battle - to travel - to intemperate but keenly felt pursuits of every description whose principal attraction is the agitation inseparable from their accomplishment.

  Lord Byron

  Pain, Accomplishment, Battle

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• The principal feature of American liberalism is sanctimoniousness. By loudly denouncing all bad things — war and hunger and date rape — liberals testify to their own terrific goodness. More important, they promote themselves to membership in a self-selecting elite of those who care deeply about such things.... It's a kind of natural aristocracy, and the wonderful thing about this aristocracy is that you don't have to be brave, smart, strong or even lucky to join it, you just have to be liberal.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Strong, War, Smart

  "Give War a Chance". Book by P. J. O'Rourke, 1992.

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• Every industrious man, in every lawful calling, is a useful man. And one principal reason why men are so often useless is that they neglect their own profession or calling, and divide and shift their attention among a multiplicity of objects and pursuits.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Calling, Useless

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• Isn’t ‘not to be bored’ one of the principal goals of life?

  Gustave Flaubert

  Boredom, Goal, Bored

  Gustave Flaubert, Francis Steegmuller (1980). “The Letters of Gustave Flaubert: 1830-1857”, p.113, Harvard University Press

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• There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion.

  Baron de Montesquieu

  Powerful, Passion, Law

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• That is the principal thing-not to remain with the dream, with the intention, with the being-in-the-mood, but always forcibly to convert it all into things.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Dream, Mood, Intention

  Rainer Maria Rilke (1969). “Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke, 1892-1910”, p.85, W. W. Norton & Company

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• The Republican Party is the party of Eddie Haskell and the principal from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

  Dana Gould

  Party, Days Off, Republican

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• The principal thing is the question of how our culture views age: that old is ugly. Take a photographer like Mapplethorpe. Every single photograph of his is about classical notions of beauty, of young beautiful black men, young beautiful women, and he selects subjects who are essentially interesting and good-looking and extremely physical. I can't stand them.

  John Coplans

  Beautiful, Men, Views

  John Coplans (2002). “A Body”, powerHouse Books

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• Everything we know has its origin in questions. Questions, we might say, are the principal intellectual instruments available to human beings. Then how is it possible that no more than one in one hundred students has ever been exposed to an extended and systematic study of the art and science of question-asking? How come Alan Bloom did not mention this, or E. D. Hirsh, Jr., or so many others who have written books on how to improve our schools? Did they simply fail to notice that the principal intellectual instrument available to hu­man beings is not examined in school?

  Alfred A. Knopf, Sr.

  Art, Book, School

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• Principal Principal: Where's your late pass, mister? Errant Student: I'm on my way to get one now. PP: But you can't be in the hall without a pass. ES: I know, I'm so upset. That's why I need to hurry, so I can get a pass. Principal Principal pauses with a look on his face like Daffy Duck's when Bugs is pulling a fast one. PP: Well, hurry up, then, and get that pass.

  Laurie Halse Anderson

  Ducks, Upset, Daffy Duck

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• Any allegiance to a deity or concept or universal principal which put obedience above decent behavior toward an innocent human being evil.

  Dan Simmons

  Evil, Deities, Innocent

  Dan Simmons (2014). “The Hyperion Cantos 4-Book Bundle: Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, The Rise of Endymion”, p.358, Spectra

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• One of the principal functions of a friend is to suffer (in a milder and symbolic form) the punishments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies.

  Aldous Huxley

  Brave New World, Punishment, Enemy

  Aldous Huxley (1933). “Retrospect: an omnibus of Aldous Huxley's books”

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• You've used up all your school sick days," he said, persuing my file. "You've requested to leave school one hundred and thirty days out of the one hudred and forty days of school so far." So thirty-one might be the magic number?" Principal Reed and Raven

  Ellen Schreiber

  School, Ravens, Numbers

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• As for myself, I always willingly acknowledge my own self as the principal cause of every good and of every evil which may befall me; therefore, I have always found myself capable of being my own pupil, and ready to love my teacher.

  Giacomo Casanova

  Inspirational, Teacher, Self

  Giacomo Casanova (2013). “The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt: Complete”, p.34, Simon and Schuster

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• We talk on principal, but act on motivation.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Motivational, Motivation

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• Let grace and goodness be the principal loadstone of thy affections. For love which hath ends, will have an end; whereas that which is founded on true virtue, will always continue.

  John Dryden

  Love, Grace, Literature

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• The principal tenet of Jainism is non-harming. Observant Jains will literally not harm a fly. Fundamentalist Jainism and fundamentalist Islam do not have the same consequences, neither logically nor behaviorally.

  Sam Harris

  Islam, Harm, Jainism

  "Q&A with Sam Harris". Article on the official site samharris.org, 2005.

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• One of the principal rules of religion is, to lose no occasion of serving God. And, since he is invisible to our eyes, we are to serve him in our neighbour; which he receives as if done to himself in person, standing visibly before us.

  John Wesley

  Eye, Done, Invisible

  John Wesley (1872). “The Works of the Rev. John Wesley: With the Last Corrections of the Author”, p.440

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