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Principle   /prˈɪnsəpəl/   Listen
Principle

noun
1.
A basic generalization that is accepted as true and that can be used as a basis for reasoning or conduct.  Synonym: rule.
2.
A rule or standard especially of good behavior.  "He will not violate his principles"
3.
A basic truth or law or assumption.
4.
A rule or law concerning a natural phenomenon or the function of a complex system.  Synonym: rule.  "The principle of jet propulsion" , "The right-hand rule for inductive fields"
5.
Rule of personal conduct.  Synonym: precept.
6.
(law) an explanation of the fundamental reasons (especially an explanation of the working of some device in terms of laws of nature).  Synonym: rationale.  "The principles of internal-combustion engines"



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"Principle" Quotes from Famous Books



... going to achieve a galaxy in which an Earthman can some day live at peace with himself—we must each day violate all the moral codes and creeds which we held inviolate the day before? That we must fight against every ideal, every principle which our fathers taught us, because they no longer apply to our ...
— Citadel • Algirdas Jonas Budrys

... Tomorrow morning I shall calmly proceed to Paris by the express. I shall exhibit a paper covered with seals to a scribe at the G.M.P., who will utter a few lamentations as a matter of form, and demobilize me with much grumbling. With us the great principle of public justice is that no one is supposed to respect the laws; this is what has enabled us to ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois

... streaks of paint you noticed upon the top-piece now reveal their purpose; as the tombo darts hither and thither, even the tints appear to be those of a real dragon-fly; and even the sound of the flitting toy imitates the dragon-fly's hum. The principle of this pretty invention is much like that of the boomerang; and an expert can make his tombo, after flying across a large room, return into his hand. All the tombo sold, however, are not as good as this one; we have been lucky. Price, ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn

... is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the Object for Attention is the DOCTRINE ITSELF, not the MAN. Yet it may not be unnecessary to say, That he is unconnected with any Party, and under no sort of Influence public or private, but the influence of reason and principle. ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine

... granted that I am a rebel, but he doesn't really believe it, and this proposition of his is intended to try me and find out where I stand. Almost the last question our class debated in school was: "Is a man ever justified in acting from policy rather than principle." I took the negative, and contended that he ought to act from principle, let the consequences be what they might; but I don't think so now. I shall join that rebel privateer, and I shall do it because I am sure something will happen to your house if I don't. Now ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon

... when pausing to consult his watch. Time was left to return at the same pace and dress for dinner; he swung round and picked up remembrances of sensations he had strewn by the way. She knew these woods; he was walking in her footprints; she was engaged to be married. Yes, his principle, never to ask a woman to marry him, never to court her, without bank-book assurance of his ability to support her in cordial comfort, was right. He maintained it, and owned himself a donkey for having stuck to it. Between him and his excellent principle there was war, without the slightest ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... yield was both subtle and compelling. Reason, the kind of reason which scoffs at ideals, told me that I was foolish to fight for a principle. On the one hand there were sharp misery, the loss of freedom, poverty and suffering for Polly: on the other, liberty and a generous degree of affluence. We could hide ourselves, Polly and I, in some remote corner of the world where no one knew; and our share of the ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde

... (3) the observation vehicle of the camera following the road and watching both of them, now faster, now slower than they, as the photographer overtakes the actors or allows them to hurry ahead. The plain chase is a bore because there are only these three time-elements. But the chase principle survives in every motion picture and we simply need more of this sort of time measurement, better considered. The more the non-human objects, the human actors, and the observer move at a varying pace, the ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay

... shadow, and if the candles are moved up and down, and about, the shadows will dance, jump over each other, and do all sorts of wonderful things. Robertson, and other public exhibitors, had quite complicated arrangements of this kind, but they all acted on the same principle. But all of those who exhibit to the public the freaks of light are not as honest as Mr. Robertson. You may have heard of Nostradamus, who also lived in Paris, but long before Robertson, and who pretended to be a magician. Among other things, ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton

... you would have had to back her, wouldn't you? You would have trained that filly and paid a couple of hundred for it. You would have fitted her at the track and paid several hundred more. You would have bet a couple of thousand, anyway, as a matter of principle, and, like enough, you'd have lost it. Now, if this road paid you fifteen dollars for that filly and saved you twenty-five hundred or three thousand into the bargain, how ought you to feel about it? Are you twenty-five hundred behind, ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

... preacher—and so on, and so on. Has Mr. Dunboyne the elder expressed any objection to the young lady? Certainly not! He knows nothing of the other engagement to Eunice; and he merely objects, on principle, to looking forward. "How do we know," says the philosopher, "what accidents may happen, or what doubts and hesitations may yet turn up? I am not to burden my mind in this matter, till I know that I must do it. Let me hear when she is ready to go to church, and I will be ready with the ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins

... employed, is wholly unsuitable, but wholly consecrated. Hence we accept it and we adopt it, like all the rest of the world, to characterize the architecture of the second half of the Middle Ages, where the ogive is the principle which succeeds the architecture of the first period, of which the semi-circle is ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... its reconstruction. Violent exercise uses up cell tissue very rapidly, so much so that a football player will commonly lose from five to ten pounds in weight during a well-contested game. It is a fundamental principle of training for any athletic event involving hard exercise, that suitable food in large quantities must be provided, and a young man training for football or rowing will eat beefsteak, eggs, and other hearty food to an astonishing amount, ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden

... through war. War has been the national industry of the Prussian people. Therefore war is considered by Treitschke as the vital principle of ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... I said. "Do our best, and hope for the best. That is a right principle, and people who act thus are seldom led far wrong. Storms, in these latitudes, though they are very violent, do not last for any length of time; and I hope we may soon fall in with some island, under which we ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... systematic illusion conceived and maintained by the Evil One, but which was, perhaps, more logically due to the disconcerting good looks and decorously restrained impetuosity of Captain Pember himself. Possibly he had been the victim of an illusion too, not believing that austerity of principle could exist with such bright eyes and red cheeks as charmed him in the country girl. At least, he never hesitated subsequently, not only to imply, but to state baldly, a sense of the existence of injury. Captain Phippeny was one of those sailors whom the change of scene, the wide knowledge ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull

... Another important principle of good buying is: Be sure you know what you want; then buy the best you can afford. The best is usually the cheapest in the long run. It means fewer replacements, longer use, and better appearance from the start. Analogous to wasting ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various

... display the visible image of a Deity: their number and distance convey to a philosophic, or even a vulgar, eye, the idea of boundless space: the character of eternity is marked on these solid globes, that seem incapable of corruption or decay: the regularity of their motions may be ascribed to a principle of reason or instinct; and their real, or imaginary, influence encourages the vain belief that the earth and its inhabitants are the object of their peculiar care. The science of astronomy was cultivated at Babylon; but the school of the Arabs was a clear firmament and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... their unchangeable beauty, but not without an effort more than human. The soul of man is likened to a charioteer and two steeds, one mortal, the other immortal. The charioteer and the mortal steed are in fierce conflict; at length the animal principle is finally overpowered, though not extinguished, by the combined energies of the passionate and rational elements. This is one of those passages in Plato which, partaking both of a philosophical and poetical character, is necessarily ...
— Meno • Plato

... not the money, but the absence of principle,—that a young man should have no feeling that he ought to live within certain prescribed means! Do you know what you have had ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... so thou neededst not our human skill To fix what thus were transient—there it grew Wedded to thy perfection; and anew With every coming vision rose there still Some living principle which did fulfil Thy most legitimate manhood; and unto Thy soul all Nature rendered up its due With not a contradiction; and each hill And mountain torrent and each wandering light Grew out divinely on thy countenance, Whereon, as we are told, by word and glance Thy hearers read an ever ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald

... is on the eve of a series of fresh and more violent wars among peoples, threatening to submerge civilization unless some means be found to replace the present treaties, which are based on the principle that it is necessary to continue the War, by a system of friendly agreements whereby winners and losers are placed on a footing of liberty and equality, and which, while laying on the vanquished a weight ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti

... public business. In the following year he supported with great power the proposal of the Rockingham administration for the repeal of the American Stamp Act, arguing that it was unconstitutional to impose taxes upon the colonies. He thus endorsed the contention of the colonists on the ground of principle, while the majority of those who acted with him contented themselves with resisting the disastrous taxation scheme on the ground of expediency. The Repeal Act, indeed, was only passed pari passu with another censuring the American assemblies, and declaring the authority ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various

... Based purely upon the physiological laws of vision it seems reasonable to conclude that mankind should not work under artificial illumination as low as has been considered necessary owing to the cost in the past. With this principle of vision as a foundation, experiments have been made with greater intensities of illumination in the industries and elsewhere and increased production has been the result. In a test in a factory where an adequate ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh

... The principle of the characters which he adopted is phonetic. There are no silent letters. Each character represents a syllable; hence no spelling is required. As soon as the alphabet is mastered, and a few additional secondary signs, some ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young

... the criminal, high or low," said Mr. Sheratt impressively, "matters not. The Bank stands upon the principle, and from this it cannot be moved." Mr. Sheratt began to wax eloquent. "Fidelity to its constituency, its shareholders, its depositors, indeed to the general public, is the corner-stone of its policy. The Bank of Scotland is a National Institution, ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor

... who catches at the Applause of an idle Multitude, as he can find no solid Contentment at the End of his Journey, so he deserves to meet with Disappointments in his Way; but he who is actuated by a noble Principle, whose Mind is so far enlarged as to take in the Prospect of his Country's Good, who is enamoured with that Praise which is one of the fair Attendants of Virtue, and values not those Acclamations which are not seconded by the impartial Testimony ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... the impression imparted to them in Spain, that they were sent to make a moral conquest of savages. In the course of years, after repeated rebuffs, and the obligation to participate in the affairs of everyday life in all its details, their rigidity of principle relaxed, and they became more tolerant towards those with whom they necessarily came in contact. They were usually taken from the peasantry and families of lowly station. As a rule they had little or no secular education, ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... Sanchez, who have proved that a man may secretly kill his enemies, since by this means he avoids two sins—that of exposing his life, and that of fighting a duel. It is in accordance with this grand consolatory principle that I have ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny

... any chance rectitude of detail. If a man is a murderer it is not much to his credit to observe that he has triumphed over the primitive temptation to eat peas with his knife. If a government is based on contempt for public opinion, as its fundamental principle, no useful purpose is served by a record of the occasions on which a policeman has been known to pass a citizen in the street without beating him. But there is one further confirmation of the view, here advanced, ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle

... Durvasas—certainly a trifling and venial fault—but he is represented as blighting her with a curse which results in all the unhappiness of the drama, and which is only ended at last by the intervention of a more powerful being. By this principle of construction the characters are reduced to mere shadow creations: beautiful as arabesques, delicate as a piece of ivory carving, tinted like the flat profiles of an Oriental fan or the pattern of a porcelain vase, but deficient in robustness and vigorous coloring. Humanity ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... and recognise that, to make it possible, sundry things should have begun for me much further back than I had felt them even in their dawn. A picture without composition slights its most precious chance for beauty, and is, moreover, not composed at all unless the painter knows how that principle of health and safety, working as an absolutely premeditated art, has prevailed. There may in its absence be life, incontestably, as The Newcomes has life, as Les Trois Mousquetaires, as Tolstoi's Peace and War, have it; but what do such large, ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... 'em from being exterminated. It's based on the same principle as the law on trout or any other game-fish. Lobsters are growing scarcer every year, and something has to be done ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman

... induced me, in opposition to my first resolution, by degrees to associate with the baron, until at length we became intimate and almost inseparable friends. I would not acknowledge this to my own conscience, which happily never suffered me to violate a principle, or yield an inch of righteous ground. The baron persevered in his attacks upon our sacred religion. I, grown bolder by long familiar acquaintance, acted as firmly upon the defensive: and I must do myself the justice to assert, that the soundness of fair argument suffered no ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... ignorance".[122] The first draft of the Virginia charter of 1606 declared that the leading motive of this "noble work", was "the planting of Christianity amongst heathens".[123] The charter of 1609 asserted that the "principle effect, which we can desire or expect of this action, is the conversion and reduction of the people in those parts unto the ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... Washington, or Jackson, would have united with any association or order not purely American? Would either have entered into any political league, when secrecy was enjoined, if he had not approved of the principle of secrecy in political associations? Never! From the characters of Washington and Jackson—the sacrifices they made for their country, united with their fervid patriotism, and their known preference for every thing American, I do not ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... moral laws. An act may be wrong, but unless the ruling power recognizes the wrong, it is useless to hope for a correction of it. Principles may be right, but they are not established within an hour. The masses are slow to reason, and each principle, to acquire moral force, must come to us from the fire of the crucible; the fire may inflict unjust punishment, but then it purifies and renders stronger the principle, not in itself, but in the eyes of those ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley

... second and fourth sections that the poem takes its name. At first sight such a work seems to be a miscellany of myths, technical advice, moral precepts, and folklore maxims without any unifying principle; and critics have readily taken the view that the whole is a canto of fragments or short poems worked up by a redactor. Very probably Hesiod used much material of a far older date, just as Shakespeare used the "Gesta Romanorum", old chronicles, ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod

... length and straightness preventing the cutter from descending into any hollows in the wood. The engineer's plane more resembles the turning-lathe, of which indeed it is but a modification, working up on the same principle, on flat surfaces. The tools or cutters in Clement's machine were similar to those used in the lathe, varying in like manner, but performing their work in right lines,—the tool being stationary and the work moving under it, the tool only travelling when making lateral cuts. To save time two cutters ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... looking to the Attic —trittus— and the Umbrian -trifo-, raise the question whether a triple division of the community was not a fundamental principle of the Graeco-ltalians: in that case the triple division of the Roman community would not be referable to the amalgamation of several once independent tribes. But, in order to the establishment ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... the sounds of a living language, by alphabetical characters, it is probable that the principle which regulated the system of orthography was, that every elementary sound should be represented by a corresponding character, either simple or compounded, and that the same sound should be represented by the same character. If different ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart

... organization (or person) that deliberately or accidentally disregards or ignores its significance. Consider, for example, what an advertising campaign can do with a product's actual specifications. Compare {GIGO}; see also {SNAFU principle}. 2. James Parry , a Usenetter infamous for various surrealist net.pranks and an uncanny, machine-assisted knack for joining any thread in which his nom de guerre ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... Joshua. It is Two-fold. The Temporal Well-Being of the Members. How Parents Abuse this part of the Home-Mission. The Eternal Well-Being of the Members. Extent of the Home-Mission. Its Importance and Responsibility. Seen in the Vicarious Character of Home. The Principle of Moral Reproduction. The Visitation of Parental Iniquity upon the Children. The Guilt of Unfaithfulness to this Mission. Qualifications for it. The Law of Equality in Marriage. How Parents may Disqualify themselves for it. Incentives to ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... disposition of most of those who were or had been convicts, so much to be regretted and so often mentioned, was particularly manifest in a shameful abuse of the Sabbath, and a profane ridicule with which every thing sacred was treated. A conduct so derogatory to every Christian principle had from time to time been severely reprobated; but it had now arrived at a height that called for the exertion of every advocate for morality to subdue. Observing, that, instead of employing the Sunday in the performance ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... determined not to shave for some months, out of principle; just to show my friends that I am the same Charlie Hubbard with moustaches that I was three ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... not wonderful,' said she, 'if all should be thought random and confused when the principle of order is not known. And though thou knowest not the causes on which this great system depends, yet forasmuch as a good ruler governs the world, doubt not for thy part that ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius

... the Irish House of Commons, and without any remuneration to the Church, was a most scandalous and Jacobinical measure. I do not blame the Irish clergy; but I submit to your common sense, if it be possible to explain to an Irish peasant upon what principle of justice, or common sense, he is to pay every tenth potato in his little garden to a clergyman in whose religion nobody believes for twenty miles around him, and who has nothing to preach to but bare walls? It is true, if the tithes are bought up, the cottager must pay more rent to his landlord; ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith

... Corcyra some chiefs of the Acarnanians, the only state in Greece which had continued to maintain its alliance with the Macedonians; and there made some kind of scheme for a change of measures. Two causes, principally, had retained them in friendship with the king: one was a principle of honour, natural to that nation; the other, their fear and hatred of the Aetolians. A general assembly was summoned to meet at Leucas; but neither did all the states of Acarnania come thither, nor were those who did attend agreed in opinion. However, the magistrates ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... fair lady,' answered the Counsellor, 'your avowed rigour alone has induced me to commit the solecism of eating a good supper in your presence; how shall I support your frowns without reinforcing my strength? Upon the same principle, and no other, I will ask permission to drink wine ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... unless, unlike Descartes, we start with the hypothesis that some trustworthy inductions have been already ascertained by man's involuntary observation. These spontaneous generalisations must be revised; and the same principle which common sense has employed to revise them, correcting the narrower by the wider (for, in the end, experience must be its own test), serves also, only made more precise, as the real type of scientific induction. As preliminary to the employment of this test, nature must ...
— Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic • William Stebbing

... judge is corrupt or ignorant of the law, and the legislators negligent in their duties in not writing into the statutes laws which would take care of his grievance. He constantly harps upon what he calls "the principle of the thing", losing, gradually, all concern in the ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck

... part frivolous or absurd; yet, since they had been received during many ages by a large society, his followers were justified by the example of mankind; and it was universally acknowledged, that they had a right to practise what it would have been criminal in them to neglect. But this principle, which protected the Jewish synagogue, afforded not any favor or security to the primitive church. By embracing the faith of the gospel, the Christians incurred the supposed guilt of an unnatural and unpardonable offence. They dissolved the sacred ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... It was impossible for the young ladies to keep William II. in constant recollection of their father's loyalty. Besides, we decided not to petition or supplicate for favours, preferring to rely on our own energies and self-help. This principle was instilled into me whilst ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint

... have secured immunity from poison by taking increased doses of it.—Translator's Note.) The caterpillar of the Death's-head Hawk-moth, which delights in the solanin of the potato, would be killed by the acrid principle of the tithymals that form the food of the Spurge-caterpillar. The herbivorous larvae are therefore perforce exclusive in their tastes, because different genera of vegetables ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... who had snapped her bonds asunder, breathed voluptuously in this atmosphere. She was like a provincial woman enjoying Paris to the full. She belonged to the romantic school, and was imbued with the principle that an artist must see everything, know everything, and have experienced himself all that he puts into his books. She found a little group of her friends from Berry in Paris, among others Felix Pyat, Charles Duvernet, ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic

... at once the advantage of his rival, and hissing through his teeth in a low voice the words: "Dat's my holt," brought his short cowhide whip down with force upon the withers of Velox. It was the act of a jockey utterly without principle, an act execrated ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick

... of the children, their advancement in their studies, their surroundings at home and in school, will all need to be taken into account in determining what selections to use and how far to carry the method. A good general principle to follow is to present to the children only so much as will hold their interest; present it in the manner that will best retain their interest, and change the subject or the method when ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... its worth, despises the latter, and can by degrees become their master; whereas a mixed ethics, compounded partly of motives drawn from feelings and inclinations, and partly also of conceptions of reason, must make the mind waver between motives which cannot be brought under any principle, which lead to good only by mere accident, and very ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... The principle on which Henry the Eighth had governed for nearly forty years was his own despotic will. And it would appear that England liked his strong hand upon the rein. He had little claim beyond his strong hand and (so much as he had ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt

... is eternal Virtue. Govinda is said to be the purest of all pure things, the righteous of the righteous and the auspicious of the auspicious. In all the three worlds, He of eyes like lotus-leaves is the God of gods, and is eternal. He is the pure soul and the active principle of life, is the Supreme Brahma and is the lord of all. That slayer of Madhu, Hari of inconceivable ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... the other). A vain, silly, extravagant creature, with a very able and ambitious husband who knows her through and through—knows that she has lied to him about her age, her income, her social position, about everything that silly women lie about—knows that she is incapable of fidelity to any principle or any person; and yet could not help loving her—could not help his man's instinct to make use of her for ...
— The Man of Destiny • George Bernard Shaw

... Council. Nearly all the priests of Paris had passed through his hands at the ordination retreats and those who belonged to the "Tuesday Conferences" were intimately known to him. Who could be better fitted to select those who were suitable for preferment? Mazarin, it is true, objected to the Council on principle, but that was simply because he considered that bishoprics and abbeys were useful things to keep in reserve as bribes for his wavering adherents. Certain reforms on which Vincent insisted were not to his ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes

... sculptured slabs representing the siege of a city by Assurnazirpal (10 to 15 in the Kouyundjik gallery at the British Museum), there are examples of both forms, and in more than one instance the triangular battlements are decorated with lines and rosettes—similar in principle to those shown above in fig. 106—that can hardly be reconciled with the notion that their form is the result of haste on the part of the artist. In the Assyrian Basement Room in the British Museum there is an interesting bas-relief ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... did not tell you that I am a sort of inventor," the Spaniard went on. "I have not had much success, but I think my new alarm clock is going to bring me in some money. It works on a new principle, but I am giving it a good test, privately, before I try to put ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton

... side, and this they render by giving it ideal ugliness, or by exaggerating the grosser characteristics. The Japanese artist knowing nothing of anatomy as a science, in its connection with art, nor even attempting the simplest principle of foreshortening, we can only fairly judge as to his success in what he practices. It will be curious to watch the progress of the Japanese, and see their first attempts in perspective drawing. So intelligent and imitative a race will not fail to acquire this simple principle of art and ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... seen her in the act of making the image, and there was offered also the testimony of the sister and brother of the dead man, who recalled that Robert Nutter on his death-bed had accused Anne of his bewitchment.[10] It does not seem to have occurred to the court that the principle that a person could not twice be put in jeopardy for the same offence was already an old principle in English law.[11] The judges were more concerned with appeasing the people than with recalling old precedents, and sent ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... if I am right in the conjecture, then we have coal encircled by a gold-field, and abundance of wood, water, and provisions—a combination not often met with in the world. The inhabitants are not unfavorable to washings, conducted on the principle formerly mentioned. At present they wash only when in want of a little calico. They know the value of gold perfectly well, for they bring it for sale in goose-quills, and demand 24 yards of calico ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... doesn't signify. What I mean is that we can die but once, and it is a glorious thing to die for a great principle. Give me that rope. I can pull like an ox in my present frame of mind. You run down on the opposite side of the brook, take that big stick wade right in—you are barefooted,—brandish the stick, and, if necessary, ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... assure you that suitability of age and position should be a principle with your benefactor," replied the lawyer. "As to race, I confess the difficulty had not occurred to me, and I failed to inquire; but if you like I will make a note of it at once, and advise you ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... fir-planking and seized branch and hose, and, dragging them into hole-and-corner places, and out upon dizzy beams, and ridge poles, dashed tons of water in the fire's face, until it hissed again. It was a fine example of the homoeopathic principle that "like cures like;" for the fire in Ned's bosom did wonders that night in the way of quenching the fire ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne

... moustache, and an eyeglass attached to a thin band of black ribbon—"Major Post wants me to wear turquoises. I prefer my pearls. Mr. Crease half agrees with me, but as he never agrees with any one, on principle, he hates to say so. Mr. Faulkes is wavering. You shall decide; you, I know, are one of those people who ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... shade, and went out on the log, and here I had good luck at once. The fish bit just as soon as I put the bait into the water, and though a good many of them were small there were some very decent-sized ones amongst them. I threw the little chaps back, on the principle that— ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce

... most surprising revelation is made in the account which follows the scene in the tent. What exalted principle—what respect for woman—what noble virtue must have characterized those among whom a mother could send her daughter at night to perform the part assigned to Ruth, apparently without a fear of evil, and receive her again, not only unharmed, but understood, ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... events of my life, one of which is, that in society we naturally depend upon each other for support, and that he who would assert his independence throws himself out of the current which bears to advancement; the other is, that with the advantages of good education, and good principle, although it cannot be expected that everyone will be so fortunate as I have been, still there is every reasonable hope, and every right to expect, that we shall do well in this world. Thrown up, as the Dominie expressed himself, as a tangled weed from ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... totality of feeling and tendency out of their necessarily limited experiences, and of not living independently of the deposit of human struggle and thump. Certainly one should perhaps profit by the last but I cannot imagine acquiring anything: conviction, principle, or any attitude of mind except by simple experience. I think we may experience in an ordinary life all that is necessary to build a sufficient and adequate world view. And what I read means nothing ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff

... drew away a little. His fine nature was shocked by Fred's coarseness and lack of principle; still, this was the boy he had chosen for an ...
— Little Grandfather • Sophie May

... to some purpose, or she was much maligned). "I know that they can't, any of them, see three yards before their noses, and that you can turn and twist them which way you will if you only go upon this principle—that they are full of vanity and self-conceit, and ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... classified with respect to the percentage of profit allowed. Nothing was too petty for its attention. Its records depict with photographic accuracy the nature of French government in Canada. From this source we can see how the principle of paternalism was carried out ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby

... governed by pain and pleasure. Utility is that property in anything which tends to produce happiness in the party concerned, whether an individual or a community. The principle of utility makes utility the criterion for approval or disapproval of every kind of action. An act which conforms to this principle is one which ought to be done, or is not one which ought not to be done; is right, or, at least, not wrong. There is no other criterion ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... exemplification of the principle assumed for this exercise, that when any one of the men has executed an order, he shall not remain in position until the order is given which requires him elsewhere; for he may not have any part in the next order, or even in that second ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN

... when the day's work ended, Mr. Flint came to make his usual round of inspection. As soon as Sam Needy saw him, he took off his cap of coarse wool, buttoned his gray vest, sad livery of the work-house, (it is a principle in prisons, that a vest, respectfully buttoned, bespeaks the favor of the superior officers,) and placed himself at the end of his bench, waiting till the director ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various

... use cataloguing all my thoughts. Some I have catalogued and the others were similar. The memory of her face and of the choke in her voice as she said she had been almost happy haunted me. My reason told me that, so far as principle and precedent went, I had acted rightly; but my conscience, which was quite unreasonable, told me I had acted like a boor. I stood it as long as I could, then I shouted at "Pet," who was jogging ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... has been constructed on a principle which is, in the opinion of the undersigned persons, new in the art of letters. Each of the two actors is described as he appeared to the other. But the undersigned persons absolutely guarantee the exactitude of the story; and if their version of the thing be questioned, ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton

... manner, been put on our guard against the selfish designs which others were harboring to our disadvantage, of which no tongue had informed us, and of which, afterwards, we had tangible proof. And, on careful inquiry among persons of thought and sensibility, we have become convinced that the principle holds good to a very considerable extent among others; and that attention to the subject is only wanting to make it a generally received opinion. It was this principle that now affected Mrs. Elwood: not that she had the most distant idea that her son ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... life still gain a disreputable livelihood and an unenviable notoriety. Match-makers from interest, and the disappointed in love and in friendship, are varieties of which specimens are extant. The great principle of the Right of Might is as flourishing now as in the days of Maid Marian: the array of false pretensions, moral, political, and literary, is as imposing as ever: the rulers of the world still feel things in their ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock

... bloated and crippled sensualist, or was she carried away by admiration of his brilliant conversation, or was she actuated by a far-reaching policy? I look upon her as a born female Jesuit, believing in the principle that the end justifies the means. Nor is such Jesuitism incompatible with pleasing manners, amiability of temper, and great intellectual radiance; it equally marked, I can fancy, Jezebel, Cleopatra, and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord

... ourselves know several persons who are not conscious of ever dreaming. Nevertheless, many contend that in all such cases dreams really occur, but that they escape the recollection; for they contend that it is impossible that the mind can, being an independent principle, ever be in a state of absolute rest. This is arguing within a very narrow circle. We must not forget that the intimate alliance of the mind with the body, subjects it to its general laws; the "heat-oppressed ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... are found, or may be manufactured near at hand. The philosophy of deep plowing and thorough pulverization is obvious. A fine soil will retain and appropriate moisture in an eminent degree, on the principle of capillary attraction, or as a sponge or a piece of loaf sugar will take up water. There is also room for excess of water to sink away from the surface, and return again when needed. It also affords room for the roots of plants. Such ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden

... frying employed by the French cook. One is, to immerse the article to be cooked in boiling fat, with an emphasis on the present participle,—and the philosophical principle is, so immediately to crisp every pore, at the first moment or two of immersion, as effectually to seal the interior against the intrusion of greasy particles; it can then remain as long as may be necessary thoroughly to cook it, without imbibing any more of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... of the cotton roving is indeed the chief desideratum that bobbin and fly frames aim at, although they assist in making the strand of cotton more uniform by carrying still further to a limited extent the doubling principle so extensively utilised ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson

... We merely "impose" something. We can not improve upon what the redman offers us in his own way. To "impose" something—that is the modern culture. The interval of imposition is our imaginary interval of creation. The primitives created a complete cosmos for themselves, an entire principle. I want merely, then, esthetic recognition in full of the contribution of the redman as artist, as one of the finest artists of time; the poetic redman ceremonialist, celebrant of the universe as he sees ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley

... changes in the condition of life and from cross-fertilisation, and of the evil effects from great changes in the conditions and from crossing widely distinct forms (i.e., species), as a series of facts "connected together by some common but unknown bond, which is essentially related to the principle of life.") But we must not allow this highly generalised view, or the analogy of chemical affinity, to conceal from us our ignorance. We do not know what is the nature or degree of the differentiation ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin

... a series of lines. Each line must contain a thought. Langhetti found no difficulty in making rhyming lines, but rhymes are not necessary. This rhythmic prose is as poetic as any thing can be. All the hymns of the Greek Church are written on this principle. So are the Te Deum and the Gloria. So were all the ancient Jewish psalms. The Jews improvised. I suppose Deborah's song, and perhaps Miriam's, ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille

... enunciation of the golden rule in its negative form, and under the name of the measuring square, and all the lessons of the chapter are connected more or less closely with that. The application of this principle by a ruler, whose heart is in the first place in loving sympathy with the people, will guide him in all the exactions which 1 See Comm. ix. 3. 2 See Comm. x. 1. he lays upon them, and in his selection of ministers, ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge

... off if the New Salon did not let them in, and half the time they hadn't. And with all it was just for the pride of being there, they were not out for medals, since the New Salon gave no awards. And altogether there was about as wide a gulf of principle and performance as could be between the two Salons that are now separated by not much more than the turnstiles in the one ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... they prescribe the kind of press in which the books are to be kept. Both they and the Premonstratensians permit their books to be lent on the receipt of a pledge of sufficient value. Lastly, the Friars, though they were established on the principle of holding no possessions of any kind, soon found that books were indispensable; that, in the words of a Norman Bishop, Claustrum sine armario, castrum sine armamentario. So, by a strange irony, it came to pass that their libraries excelled those of most other ...
— Libraries in the Medieval and Renaissance Periods - The Rede Lecture Delivered June 13, 1894 • J. W. Clark

... was somewhat bluff, but, nevertheless, judicious; for I had once heard him say, in a confidential moment, that he always, upon principle, made light of his patients' aches and ailments, as he had discovered, by long experience, that this had a good effect upon the invalids, causing them to believe that there was never anything very seriously wrong with them, and thus calling in the aid of their imagination to assist in the ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... the underlying principles. By spreading the course over 30 days they made it possible to use it all. They retained the 95th Psalm as the first Psalm of every day; and also the principle of having two daily Services at which ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson

... public-house on his left into the church on his right. Indeed, he was an excellent customer of the former institution, and was on the best of terms with its landlord, who was an ex-pugilist after his kind. He made no discrimination in the dispensation of his charity. He worked on the principle that before he reformed a man he must feed him—so before he attempted to deal with the mind he relieved the body. He was open-handed and unsuspicious—and wonderfully beloved. There were hundreds of ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming

... Hegel's whole philosophy consists in showing, by means of one uniform principle, that the world manifests everywhere a genuine evolution. Unlike the participants in the biological "struggle for existence," the struggling beings of Hegel's universe never end in slaying, but in reconciliation. Their very struggle gives birth to a new being which includes them, and this being ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... Strettell's teaching by telling you that what holds true of words, and of their grammatic and logical composition, holds true also of their aesthetic and artistic composition, of style, of rhythm, of poetry, and oratory. Every principle of these which is true and good, that is, which produces beauty, is to be taken as an inspiration from above, as depending not on the will of man but of God; not on any abstract rules, of pedant's invention, but on the eternal ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... worthy of admiration; he only requires that the surprise they cause shall be qualified by a consideration of the wonders of nature, to which he likewise gives the name of miracles, in a more extended sense: on the same principle, and a fortiori, what there is surprising in them should not make them appear to us incredible. An enlightened mind does not believe in miracles which are communicated to him, unless due proof of them is adduced; but it is not because what is wonderful in them renders ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe

... church fair should be to strengthen the church, to propagate the Gospel, and to bring the world nearer to its God." That is Dr. Conwell's idea of the purpose of a church fair and the basic principle on which The Temple fairs are built. They always open on Thanksgiving Day, the anniversary of Dr. Conwell's coming to the church and continue for ten days or two weeks thereafter. These fairs are most carefully ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr

... their latest historians, M. Haverty, "attributed the utmost importance to the accuracy of their Historic compositions for social reasons. Their whole system of society—every question as to right of property—turned upon the descent of families and the principle of clanship; so that it cannot be supposed that mere fables would be tolerated instead of facts, where every social claim was to be decided on their authority. A man's name is scarcely mentioned in our annals without the addition of his forefathers for several generations—a thing which rarely ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... to this principle, he felt free to add as a gratuitous concession to politeness: "You are perhaps not aware that I am Mrs. Westmore's lawyer, and one of the ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... been mentioned in these pages, was the incumbent of Hogglestock. On what principle the remuneration of our parish clergymen was settled when the original settlement was made, no deepest, keenest lover of middle-aged ecclesiastical black-letter learning can, I take it, now say. That the priests were to be paid from tithes of the parish produce, out of which tithes certain other ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... a bashful air, "I am doctor as well as skipper. Indeed, I'm parson too—a sort of Jack-of-all-trades! I'm not full fledged of course, but on the principle, I fancy, that 'half a loaf is better than no bread,' I've been sent here after goin' through a short course o' trainin' in surgery—also in divinity; something like city missionaries and Scripture-readers; not that trainin', much or little, would fit any man for ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne

... his room laden with the spoils of the house, proceeded to adorn himself on the principle of selection, discarding the Gutter Pup's trousers for the gala breeches of the Tennessee Shad, donning the braided cutaway of Lovely Mead's in preference to an affair of Slush Randolph's which was too tight ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... justify a subject in turning against his king. The king can do no wrong. All that we have is his; let him take what he will, so he leaves us our honor, and that, indeed, no one can take from us. It is the principle that our ancestors have attested on a hundred fields and in every other way, and will you now be false ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... arbitrary government over the colonies claimed by the British parliament. So far as the claim was concerned as a theory, but little was said, but when it was put in force an opposition at once arose. The people had long been taught to act and think upon the principle of eternal right, which had a tendency to mould them in a channel that looked towards independence. The character of George III. was such as to irritate the people. He was stubborn and without the least conception of human rights; nor could he conceive of a magnanimous ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... leading principle of democracy which is contained in the American Declaration of Independence, where, as in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, revolution triumphed and established that all political power comes from the people. And as Lincoln said, is of the ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... critical work,—his cheerfulness, his sweet temper and human sympathy, his modesty, his humor, his independence of spirit, and his enthusiastic delight in literature. That his cheerfulness was a matter of temperament we cannot doubt, but it was also founded on principle. He had remarkable power of self-control.[21] His opinion that it is a man's duty to live a happy life appears rather quaintly in the sermonizing with which he felt called upon to temper the admiration expressed in his ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball

... letter, a bitter smile sat on his harsh yet handsome features. "If," said he, mentally, "I can effect this object,—if Mauleverer does marry this girl,—why so much the better that she has another, a fairer, and a more welcome lover. By the great principle of scorn within me, which has enabled me to sneer at what weaker minds adore, and make a footstool of that worldly honour which fools set up as a throne, it would be to me more sweet than fame—ay, or even than power—to see this fine-spun lord a gibe ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... once swallowed this principle, that Mankind is free from all obligations antecedent to the laws of the Commonwealth, and that the Will of the Sovereign Power is the only measure of Good and Evil, they proceed suitably to its consequences to believe that no Religion can obtain the force ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... father. I have never indulged in such romantic visions, but I cannot willingly unite my fate with one in whom I see no fixed principle of action—one who owns no guide but pleasure. His heart may be good, I doubt it not; but I cannot respect one who spends his whole life in fox-hunting, drinking, and all the pleasures peculiar to ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar

... a hostelry which Dad had been accustomed to patronise when at the naval college in the dockyard learning all about the new principle of steam just then introduced into the service before I was "thought of," as he said, and, no doubt, the place is as well known to young fellows and old "under the pennant" in these prosaic days of "floating flat-irons and gimcrack fighting machines," as the "Fountain Inn" in High Street ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson

... accordingly divided with the utmost care by Will, who, by the way, did not require a pipe as he was not a smoker. We do not record this as an evidence of his superior purity! By no means. Will Osten, we regret to say, was not a man of strong principle. All the principle he had, and the good feelings which actuated him, were the result of his mother's teaching—not of his own seeking. He did not smoke because his mother had discouraged smoking, therefore—not having acquired the habit—he disliked it. Thousands of men might ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne

... life, founded on a sense of property in this world and the next; nor were they precisely the morals and religion of the aristocracy, who, though aestheticised in parts, quietly used, in bulk, their fortified position to graft on Mr. Purcey's ethics the principle of 'You be damned!' In the eyes of the majority he was probably an immoral and irreligious man; but in fact his morals and religion were those of his special section of society—the cultivated classes, "the professors, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy



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