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Principle   Listen
noun
Principle  n.  
1.
Beginning; commencement. (Obs.) "Doubting sad end of principle unsound."
2.
A source, or origin; that from which anything proceeds; fundamental substance or energy; primordial substance; ultimate element, or cause. "The soul of man is an active principle."
3.
An original faculty or endowment. "Nature in your principles hath set (benignity)." "Those active principles whose direct and ultimate object is the communication either of enjoyment or suffering."
4.
A fundamental truth; a comprehensive law or doctrine, from which others are derived, or on which others are founded; a general truth; an elementary proposition; a maxim; an axiom; a postulate. "Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection." "A good principle, not rightly understood, may prove as hurtful as a bad."
5.
A settled rule of action; a governing law of conduct; an opinion or belief which exercises a directing influence on the life and behavior; a rule (usually, a right rule) of conduct consistently directing one's actions; as, a person of no principle. "All kinds of dishonesty destroy our pretenses to an honest principle of mind."
6.
(Chem.) Any original inherent constituent which characterizes a substance, or gives it its essential properties, and which can usually be separated by analysis; applied especially to drugs, plant extracts, etc. "Cathartine is the bitter, purgative principle of senna."
Bitter principle, Principle of contradiction, etc. See under Bitter, Contradiction, etc.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Principle" Quotes from Famous Books



... tent, perfectly waterproof, and of so light a construction as to travel with only two bearers, is absolutely indispensable. My tent is on the principle of an umbrella, fifteen feet in diameter, and will house three persons comfortably. A circular table fits in two halves round the tent-pole; three folding chairs have ample space; three beds can be arranged round the tent walls; the boxes of clothes, etc., stow under the beds; and a dressing-table ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... anything immoral in it as fur as I read, but it belongs to what I consider a very dangerous class of publications. These novels and romances are awfully destructive to our youth. I should recommend you, as a young man of principle, to burn the vollum. At least I hope you will not leave it about anywhere unless it is carefully tied up. I have written upon the paper round it to warn off all the young persons of my household ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... square, and the hot tiles of a huge dome staring up into it. Round the cloister walk are discreet brown doors, and by the side of each door a brass plate tells you the name and titles of the Canon who lives behind it. It is on the principle of Dean's Yard at Westminster; only here there are more Canons—and ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett

... pursuit of this science, many intricacies which it is rather difficult for the juvenile mind completely to unravel. I shall, therefore, as I proceed, address you in plain language, and endeavor to illustrate every principle in a manner so clear and simple, that you will be able, if you exercise your mind, to understand its nature, and apply it to practice as you go along; for I would rather give you one useful idea, than fifty high-sounding ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham

... keep his resolution not to adopt their ideas, nor fall into their ways and habits; but when those very evils he condemned in them were presented to him in a different form by Harry Ashton, his old friend and school-fellow—leaving the principle the same, and only the practice a little altered—he was off his guard; and the habits he regarded with dislike in Williams and Lawson, he was beginning secretly ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder

... traditions as to the arrangement of tools, but there are two principles always worth observing. (1) It is an old saying that there should be "a place for everything and everything in its place." This is eminently true of a well-ordered woodworking shop, and there is another principle just as important. (2) Things of the same sort should be arranged together, and arranged by sizes, whether they be general tools or individual tools. In arranging the rack for general tools, a few suggestions are offered. In the first place, arrange ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes

... bicameral National Congress or Congresso Nacional consists of the Federal Senate or Senado Federal (81 seats; three members from each state and federal district elected according to the principle of majority to serve eight-year terms; one-third elected after a four-year period, two-thirds elected after the next four-year period) and the Chamber of Deputies or Camara dos Deputados (513 seats; members are elected ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... was over, and he had helped to dry the dishes, Paul nervously asked his father whether he could go to George's to get some help in his geometry, and still more nervously asked for car-fare. This latter request he had to repeat, as his father, on principle, did not like to hear requests for money, whether much or little. He asked Paul whether he could not go to some boy who lived nearer, and told him that he ought not to leave his school work until Sunday; but he gave him the dime. He was not a poor ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather

... matters of verse and prose, extreme modesty and propriety are two very different things. Cicero makes the latter consist in saying what is appropriate one should say, considering the place, the time, and the persons to whom one is speaking. This principle once admitted, it is not a fault of judgment to entertain the people of to-day with Tales which are a little broad. Neither do I sin in that against morality. If there is anything in our writings which is capable of making an impression on the mind, it is by no means the gaiety of these Tales; ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... that "The Royston Post Coach, constructed on a most approved principle for speed and pleasure in travelling goes from Royston to London in six hours, admits of only four persons inside, and sets out every morning from Mr. Watson's the ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... electricity required to cause discharge over the same distance, when the pressure of the air or its density is increased, flows in a similar manner, and on the same principle (1375.), ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... come, such derangements of the celestial machinery simply do not happen. For this reason, our evolution has unfolded harmoniously along one line of development, whereas yours has branched out into diversified and grotesque expressions of the Life-Principle. Your so-called highest manifestation of this principle, namely, your own species, is characterized by a great number of specialized organs. Through this very specialization of functions, however, you have ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various

... but it is an inverse proportion, since, where the distance is greater, the opaque body will appear smaller, and the less the distance the larger will the object appear. And this is the fundamental principle of linear perspective and it follows:—[11]every object as it becomes more remote loses first those parts which are smallest. Thus of a horse, we should lose the legs before the head, because the ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... resources to that end. We can now see that the hidden currents of national destiny were tending in an irresistible way to war on the part of the United States. Every consideration of national safety and every principle that we hold dear, demanded that we should respond to the call of the President to arms. Then commenced the wonderful preparations for war on the part of the United States. Official Germany in conversation with Minister Gerard, before the rupture of diplomatic relations, laughed to scorn the thought ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... Messrs. A. and B. are the most gracious, unassuming people in the world, and yet preeminent in the ranges of science I am referring to. I know that as well as you. But mark this which I am going to say once for all: If I had not force enough to project a principle full in the face of the half dozen most obvious facts which seem to contradict it, I would think only in single file from this day forward. A rash man, once visiting a certain noted institution at South Boston, ventured to express the sentiment, that man is a rational being. An old woman who was ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... always infest public haunts, and live by preying upon the fast, foolish, and unwary. Haldane, from his character and associations, was liable to such an experience whenever circumstances combined to make it possible. Young men with no more principle than he possessed are never safe from disaster, and they who trust them trust rather to the chances of their not meeting the peculiar temptations and tests to which they would prove unequal. Laura could not then know how little she had to do with the tremendous ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... represent the posts that support the house. Now, whenever the pieces of vine are not sufficient to form even one "ladder," it is evident that all hopes of entering the house and getting the enemy are vain. The principle of the omen consists in the observation of the presence and number of ladders, and of the length of the central piece which represents the inmates of the house to be attacked. The following are some of the main ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... me," he admitted, "but it's the principle of the thing. And as for that Mission Band of yours, if it wasn't for the fun you get out of it, catch one of you belonging. You don't really care a rap more for ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... proposition, nor extract hidden truths from the copula, nor dispute any longer about nominalism and realism. We do not confuse the form with the matter of knowledge, or invent laws of thought, or imagine that any single science furnishes a principle of reasoning to all the rest. Neither do we require categories or heads of argument to be invented for our use. Those who have no knowledge of logic, like some of our great physical philosophers, seem to be quite as good reasoners as those ...
— Euthydemus • Plato

... Demosthenes who could sway multitudes by his matchless oratory, once said, "In order to succeed a man must have a purpose fixed, then let his motto be VICTORY OR DEATH." When Henry Clay, the poor country boy, son of an unknown Baptist minister, made up his mind to become an orator, he acted on this principle. No discouragement or obstacle was allowed to swerve him from his purpose. Since the death of his father, when the boy was but five years old, he had carried grist to the mill, chopped wood, followed the plow barefooted, clerked in a country ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden

... Later the then little firm of Cailler, realising the importance of having the factory on the very spot where rich milk was produced in abundance, established a works near Gruyeres. This grew rapidly and soon became the largest factory in Switzerland. The sound principle of having your factory in the heart of a milk producing area was adopted by Cadbury's, who built milk condensing factories at the ancient village of Frampton-on-Severn, in Gloucestershire, and at Knighton, near Newport, Salop. Before the war these two factories together condensed from two to three ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp

... Breath (ruakh) floated without affecting it; "and this Chaos had no ending, and it was thus for centuries and centuries.—Then the Breath became enamoured of its own principles, and brought about a change in itself, and this change was called Desire:—now Desire was the principle which created all things, and the Breath knew not its own creation.—The Breath and Chaos, therefore, became united, and Mot the Clay was born, and from this clay sprang all the seed of creation, and Mot was the father of all things; now Mot was like an egg in shape.—And the Sun, the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... call, in the language of their country, Mithras. They differ in this: that one thinks the god whom he worships is this Supreme Being, and another thinks that his idol is that god; but they all agree in one principle, that whoever is this Supreme Being, He is also that great essence to whose glory and majesty all honours are ascribed by ...
— Utopia • Thomas More

... President and I earnestly hope that the Chinese Communist regime will not again, as in the case of Korea, defy the basic principle upon which world order depends, namely, that armed force should not be used to achieve territorial ambitions. Any such naked use of force would pose an issue far transcending the offshore islands and even the security of Taiwan (Formosa). It would forecast a widespread use of force in the Far East ...
— The Communist Threat in the Taiwan Area • John Foster Dulles and Dwight D. Eisenhower

... letters, the dreadful truth, that all this has nothing new; all this has been; and all this has never yet been proved sufficient security. Freedom is the fairest gift of Heaven; but it is not the security of itself. Democracy is the embodiment of freedom, which in itself is but a principle. But what is the security of democracy? And if you answer, "The Union is;" then I ask, "And where is the security of the Union?" Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Freedom is no new word. It is as old as the world. Despotism is new, but Freedom not. And yet it has never yet proved a charter ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth

... But there are multitudes of other animals, such as crabs, lobsters, spiders, and so on, which we term "Annulosa". In these I could not point out to you the parts that correspond with those of the Horse,—the backbone, for instance,—as they are constructed upon a very different principle, which is also common to all of them; that is to say, the Lobster, the Spider, and the Centipede, have a common plan running through their whole arrangement, in just the same way that the Horse, the Dog, and the Porpoise ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... 1. The principle of arranging all words according to their actual spelling has been to a considerable extent abandoned. It was admittedly an unscientific one, and opened the door to a good many errors and inconsistencies. The head form in this edition may be either a normalised ...
— A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary - For the Use of Students • John R. Clark Hall

... The principle of the method may be summed up in these few words: It is impossible to think of two things at once, that is to say that two ideas may be in juxtaposition, but they cannot ...
— Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion • Emile Coue

... evidently highly amused by this exposition of one variety of ministerial principle, and looked up at Vincent over her fan, her eyes sparkling with mockery. He savored with an intimate pleasure her certainty that he would follow the train of her thought; and he decided to try to get another rise out of the round-eyed little ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... Gods," says Epictetus, "you must know that this is the chief thing, to have right opinions about them, to think that they exist, and that they administer the All well and justly; and you must fix yourself in this principle (duty), to obey them, and to yield to them in everything which happens, and voluntarily to follow it as being ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock

... citizen-life." But in its usage the verb drops all explicit reference to the polites, and means little more than "live"; in the sense however not of mere existence, or even of experience, but of a course of principle and order. See Acts xxiii. 1, the only other N.T. passage where it occurs; and 2 ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule

... inspires, Man for his palate fits by torturing fires. But, though my edge be not too nicely set, Yet I another's appetite may whet; May teach him when to buy, when season's pass'd, What's stale, what choice, what plentiful, what waste, And lead him through the various maze of taste. The fundamental principle of all Is what ingenious cooks the relish call; For when the market sends in loads of food, They all are tasteless till that makes them good. Besides, 'tis no ignoble piece of care, To know for whom it is you would prepare. You'd please a friend, or reconcile ...
— A Poetical Cook-Book • Maria J. Moss

... hypothesis, which has been often and perhaps justly propounded, is quite compatible, that the vaulted roof of the Roman great -cloaca-, and that which was afterwards thrown over the old Capitoline well-house which originally had a pyramidal roof,(34) are the oldest extant structures in which the principle of the arch is applied; for it is more than probable that these arched buildings belong not to the regal but to the republican period,(35) and that in the regal period the Italians were acquainted only with flat or overlapped roofs.(34) But whatever ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... of the man or his function. There is ancient authority for a clerk or clerks. It is wise to secure work to be attended to in the functions of divine service for as many laymen as possible, consistent with principle and propriety. W.L. was an old man when I saw him, but I can hear him now as with a pathos quite touching and teaching, because done so simply and naturally, he ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... our readers will examine with some attention the developments we have made in relation to the deceptive schemes of the lottery managers; for we feel that they cannot fail to convince every man of common sense, who has a particle of moral principle and moral honesty left, that he who encourages this basest of all swindling, by purchasing tickets, is not alone an enemy to himself and family, but he countenances a species of gambling that is extensively mischievous and ruinous, and has for ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green

... is no easy thing for a principle to become a man's own, unless each day he maintain it and hear it maintained, as well as work it ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus

... After many messages Palla came to San Pulinari on horseback, accompanied by two of his people on foot, and unarmed. Rinaldo, on meeting him, sharply reproved him for his negligence, declaring that his refusal to come with the others arose either from defect of principle or want of courage; both of which charges should be avoided by all who wished to preserve such a character as he had hitherto possessed; and that if he thought this abominable conduct to his party would induce their enemies when victorious to spare him ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli

... and tossed the cigarette-end away. "I'd puzzle you more, I'm afraid, if I tried to explain to you what I really meant by it. I divide people up into two classes, you know—Greeks and Jews. Once you get hold of that principle, all other divisions and classifications, such as by race or language or nationality, seem pure foolishness. It is the only true division there is. It is just as true among negroes or wild Indians who never heard of Greece or Jerusalem, as it is among white folks. ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... of forethought, the water-wise gardener can easily reestablish capillarity below sprouting seeds so that moisture held deeper in the soil rises to replace that lost from surface layers, reducing or eliminating the need for watering. The principle here can be easily demonstrated. In fact, there probably isn't any gardener who has not seen the phenomenon at work without realizing it. Every gardener has tilled the soil, gone out the next morning, and noticed that his ...
— Gardening Without Irrigation: or without much, anyway • Steve Solomon

... convinced that you need an orchestrome. It's the sweetest instrument in the world, worth at least five pounds, and for one shilling you have a chance of getting it. It is to be raffled." Eliza objects, on principle, to anything like gambling; but as this was for the Deserving Inebriates, which is a good cause, she paid her shilling. She won the orchestrome, and I ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain

... the same words, their arrangement and combination alone making the difference in the various products. Nature uses the same elements in her endless variety of living things; their different arrangement and combinations, and some interior necessity which we have to call the animating principle, is the secret ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs

... speak but once an Hour, supinely Grave and insolently Sullen, nor Smile but on good terms to Laugh, at us for Life: But other Climates animate more warmly; Sexes alike are free, reciprocally gay, and Pleasures are persu'd without Reflection, if Principle or Fear refuse us Love; for I'm the tenderest of a Lady's Honour, the Fair One still has tantalizing Charms, her tuneful Voice, her graceful, easie Movement, her lively Converse, happy turn of Thought, Language polite, keen ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker

... Latin. Something may be said for epitaphs and inscriptions addressed, as it were, to the world at large—a triumphal arch — the pillar at Blenheim—the monument on the field of Waterloo: but a Latin epitaph in an English church, appears, in principle, as absurd as the dinner, which the doctor gives in Peregrine Pickle, 'after the manner of the ancients.' A mortal may surely be well satisfied if his fame lasts as long as the language in which he spoke ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... "That principle is fallacious!" the inventor exclaimed. "Consider what it would mean here—a steel shaft sixteen stories ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin

... not true, if many and many of your young men of pleasure had not acted it, and rued the moral, I would tear the page. You know that in our Nursery Tales there is commonly a good fairy to counsel, and a bad one to mislead the young prince. You perhaps feel that in your own life there is a Good Principle imploring you to come into its kind bosom, and a Bad Passion which tempts you into its arms. Be of easy minds good-natured people! Let us disdain surprises and coups-de-theatre for once; and tell those good souls who are interested about him, that there is a ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... want. It's the counter-irritation principle. Persevere, and you'll soon forget that you're on board ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... occupied scarce half-an-hour, there was little perceptible difference between the Sabbath and any other day. We would not be understood to speak lightly of this difference. Little though it was in point of time and appearance, it was immeasurably great in fact, as it involved the great principle that the day of rest ought to be observed, and that the Creator should be honoured in a ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... Dry Bones he treads with timid steps; and his look up to the "Terrible Crystal" is more of fright than of exultation. But the lovelier, softer, simpler, and more pensive parts of the Bible are very dear to the gentle Spectator, and are finely, if faintly, reproduced in his writings. Indeed, the principle which would derogate from Addison's works, would lead to the depreciation of portions of the Scriptures too. "Ruth" is not so grand as the "Revelation;" the "Song of Solomon" is not so sublime as the "Song of Songs, which is ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... were on every stall; the Mudie of Melbourne gave them a place of honour in his show-window, and the leading critical review said that the second story possessed a charm which ought to induce even the person who ignored fiction on principle to make an exception in its favour. It was the kind of gratifying recognition that the public always believes itself eager to offer the deserving young writer. Yet Ada Cambridge's literary work had extended over no less a period than fifteen years. Of course, ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne

... to taking this personal interest in them individually, I based my relations with them collectively on a principle of strict, homely justice. I found there was no quality of such universal appeal as this one of justice. Whether dealing with Italians, Russians, Portuguese, Poles, Irish or Irish-Americans you could always get below their national peculiarities if you reached ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton

... in his essay, as Mr. George does in his works now, that he did not mean to annul the existing titles to land. 'Far from it,' Dr. Buchanan said. 'Such a scheme would be a miserable climax of folly and injustice, fit only to render the great principle equally odious and ridiculous.' The doctor insisted that he proposed to 'maintain in legislation the broad principle that the nation owns the soil, and that this ownership is paramount to all individual claims,' and from ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various

... from your grasp. Our jewel, as freemen, is the right of self-government; the form of government is a mere convenience—a machine, which may be dismembered, destroyed, remodelled a thousand times, without detriment to the great principle of which it is ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood

... the solution of the most abstruse questions. It went on, from point to point, until all the faculties of the mind were severely analyzed, and all its operations were subjected to a rigid method. The Romans never added a single principle to the philosophy which the Greeks elaborated; the ingenious scholastics of the Middle Ages merely reproduced their ideas; and even the profound and patient Germans have gone round in the same circles that Plato and Aristotle marked ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... is doubtful if up to this time any Spaniard ever entertained such an "outlandish" notion. The bull-fight is said to have been founded by the Moors of Spain, although bulls were probably fought with or killed in Roman amphitheatres. The principle on which they were founded was the display of horsemanship, use of the lance, courage, coolness, and dexterity—all accomplishments of the Arabs of the desert. It is undoubtedly the latter qualities which make the sport so ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street

... Government in consequence of it to Lords Justices appointed under the Act of last year. I trust, however, that these favourable accounts [of the King's health] will have put this idea out of the question. But if not, for God's sake consider whether there is any one principle in which you deny the right of the two Houses to appoint a Regent by address, which does not apply equally to prove that they cannot either appoint or remove a Lord-Lieutenant by resolution. I am persuaded, the more I think of it, that it is impossible for you to quit the Government in any ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... upon your provinces, in order to obtain means of living; for in what other quarter should we make application. Your Highnesses give us nothing except promises; but soldiers are not chameleons, to live on such air. According to every principle of law, creditors have a lien on the property of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... better position without this political aid, and citing the case of the Jerseys and Pennsylvania, where nothing of the kind had been attempted, and where, nevertheless, "there are four times the number of churchmen that there are in this province of New York; and they are so, most of them, upon principle, whereas nine parts in ten of ours will add no great credit to whatever ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... sole, thus preventing the jamming of toes between stones when walking, for instance, on debris, and also doing away with the accumulation of snow and mud between the sole and boot, so inconvenient in our footgear. There are many varieties and makes of boots in Tibet, but the principle is always the same. The boots are always homemade, each individual making his own, except in large towns, where footgear can be purchased, and necessarily the quality is then not up to the same high standard. The difference ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... oxygen necessary for forming the sulphuric acid, it is more disposed to recover oxygen, than to furnish it to the greatest part of the metals; and, for this reason, it cannot dissolve them, unless previously oxydated by other means. From the same principle it is that the metallic oxyds dissolve without effervescence, and with great facility, in sulphurous acid. This acid, like the muriatic, has even the property of dissolving metallic oxyds surcharged ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier

... said that the caterer for our mess was a steady old mate, Reuben Boxall; a most excellent fellow, for whom I entertained a great regard. He followed the principle my father had advised me to adopt, and never threw away a piece of string—that is to say, when an opportunity occurred of acquiring knowledge he never neglected it. His chief fancy, however, was for doctoring—that is to say, the kindness of his heart ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston

... Mysteries from the Egyptians; and of course were familiar with their legend,—known as it was to those Egyptian Initiates, Joseph and Moses. It was the fable (or rather the truth clothed in allegory and figures) of OSIRIS, the Sun, Source of Light and Principle of Good, and TYPHON, the Principle of Darkness and Evil. In all the histories of the Gods and Heroes lay couched and hidden astronomical details and the history of the operations of visible Nature; and those in their turn were also symbols of higher and profounder truths. None but rude uncultivated ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... made by A. Bormann (M. Porcii Catonis Originum Libri vii., Brandenburg 1858, p. 38) to prove that the principle of division was geographical, and that history only came in incidentally in connexion with the reduction of provinces; but as Nepos was writing to an eminent authority on antiquities, his account is likely to be right. The period between the kings ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton

... might be called supplementary brains well toward the other end of the body,—great nervous masses near the sacrum, many times the size of the ostensible brain, which no doubt performed certain brain functions. But the principle of centralization was at work, and when in later time we reach the higher mammalian forms, we find these outlying nervous masses called in, so to speak, and ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... The principle at work is not the increase in the farmer's material gains or possessions. The husbandry of the soil is not a mere increase in market values. It is a deeper and more ethical welfare than that which can be put in the bank. "Agriculture is a religious occupation." When it sustains ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson

... increased respect] Have you indeed? I didnt know: youll excuse my mistake, I hope. But the principle is the same. Now I trust you wont be offended at what I'm going to say; but Ive thought about this and watched it in daily experience; and you may take it from me that the moment a woman becomes pecuniarily independent, she gets hold of the wrong end of the stick ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw

... obvious, hence only the method by which it was undertaken is open to question. The move was made by the flank in the face of an exultant foe superior in numbers, and was a violation of a simple and fundamental military principle. Under such circumstances columns naturally stretch out into attenuated lines, organizations become separated, and intervals occur, all of which we experienced; and had the orders for the movement been construed properly I doubt if it could have been executed without serious danger. ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan

... into a great iron vessel, which is nothing more nor less than a gigantic coffee-pot, holding two hundred and forty pounds at a time. Hundreds of gallons of filtered water are pumped into the coffee-pot, which acts on the drip principle, and the infusion is drawn off to an evaporating tank. A steam pump keeps the air exhausted from this tank, so that the coffee is in vacuo, being heated meanwhile to a high temperature by steam pipes. The water it contains rapidly passes off, and the coffee is ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various

... Interest her own, and to induce them to come regularly to Church, she ordered a Loaf, or the Price of a Loaf, to be given to every one who would accept of it. This brought many of them to Church, who by degrees learned their Duty, and then came on a more noble Principle. She also took Care to encourage Matrimony; and in order to induce her Tenants and Neighbours to enter into that happy State, she always gave the young Couple something towards House-keeping; and stood Godmother to all their Children, whom she had in Parties, every Sunday ...
— Goody Two-Shoes - A Facsimile Reproduction Of The Edition Of 1766 • Anonymous

... Constantine was a short distance west of the Hippodrome. One of its principle monuments, a huge porphyry column, still stands and is ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius

... of individual interest for the general good, ought not," he said, "to be expected or required. The nature of man must be changed, before institutions built on the presumptive truth of such a principle can succeed. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... the other way and ate as fast as he could, to close his eyes to the spectacle of any one spoiling the sappy swede greens with nauseous vinegar. To his system of edible philosophy vinegar was utterly antagonistic—destructive of the sap-principle, altogether wrong, and, in fact, wicked, as destroying ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies

... us in a way in which many of our friends or acquaintances never see us. Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend. For, in the first place, each puts a special reflection of himself upon us, on the principle of assimilation referred to in my last record, if you happen to have read that document. And secondly, each of our friends is capable of seeing just so far, and no farther, into our face, and each sees in it the particular thing that he looks for. Now the artist, if he is truly an artist, does not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... the principle developed in the catapult, Tommy and Denham had built a large Tube, and as Tommy climbed along its corrugated interior he knew a good part of what he should expect at the other end. A steady current ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... gave a description of my case some years ago, in a lecture I think at Brighton—but of course without the name. The particular weakness was valvular disease of the heart, the consequence of rheumatic fever, and this treatment was founded on the principle that Nature always works towards compensation. He told me many years ago that that particular ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes

... discovered the secret. The circumstance surprised me and even embarrassed me very much; but, I, you see, do not believe on principle. Just as others begin by believing, I begin by doubting; and when I don't at all understand, I continue to deny that there can be any telegraphic communication between souls, certain that my own sagacity will be enough to explain it. Well, I have gone on inquiring into the matter, and I have ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... One manifesting itself in its own Substance (Space) by means of two powers, Thought (imagination) and Will (the Word or Life); both powers being fundamentally identical and merely two different modes of activity or functions of the One Eternal, internal Principle, called God. According to the Bible, God said, "Let there be light," and through the power of this outspoken "Word," the world came into existence. This allegory, expressed in modern language, means ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various

... other relations; because she thought it very hard, when their time was taken up, so that they could not earn their daily bread, that they should be left to suffer. Now, such is the stupifying influence of the "chattel principle" on the minds of slaveholders, that I do not suppose it ever occurred to her that this poor colored wife ought to be paid for her services, and particularly as she was spending her time and strength in taking care of her "property." She ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... conduct to the worst of motives,—that he rails at everybody, and declares the accusation to be a libel: in short, you see plainly that the man's head is turned. You see there is not a word he says upon this occasion which has common sense in it; you see one great leading principle in it,—that he does not once attempt to deny the charge. He attempts to vilify the witness, he attempts to vilify those he supposes to be his accusers, he attempts to vilify the Council; he lags upon the accusation, he mixes it with other accusations, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... been said that there is an absolute opposition between these two classes of sayings; that either Jesus contradicted Himself, or the evangelist drew from one source which was of a Judaizing character, and from another source which taught St. Paul's principle of justification by faith versus justification by the Law. But the same divine paradox of truth which we find in Matt. runs through most of the New Testament, and is found plainly in St. Paul. In the Epistle where he exposes the failure of contemporary Judaism most remorselessly, ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan

... yards from the horse. Arrived at the gully, Bill reined in to a very slow walk, and peered about him carefully upon the ground. He never walked a yard on his own feet if a horse was available. This was so much a matter of principle with Bill that he had been known to walk and run three miles in pursuit of a horse with which to ride across a paddock no more than a quarter of a mile from his original starting-place. It was Jess who found what her man was questing: the quite fresh tracks of a kangaroo; ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... heaven, were of a different opinion, may your Majesty consider him an agent of the devil, who tries to convince people that the gospel of Jesus Christ is to be preached with zeal and not with knowledge, with violence and force of arms, like the alcoran of Mahoma. This is a principle which may God remove from the minds of all Christian princes, and from all men who are well acquainted with the law of God and evangelical truth. I am confident that, when your Majesty learns the truth, you will not ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair

... they'd bounced by us back in the Mare Chronium. I've a hunch how they work, too—this is for your information, Leroy. I think the crystal shell of silica is no more than a protective covering, like an eggshell, and that the active principle is the smell inside. It's some sort of gas that attacks silicon, and if the shell is broken near a supply of that element, some reaction starts that ultimately develops into a ...
— A Martian Odyssey • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum

... subject is of paramount importance in the life of the average person. You must try to imagine then, a society in which every man must choose his wife, and every woman must choose her husband, independent of all outside help, and not only choose but obtain if possible. The great principle of Western society is that competition rules here as it rules in everything else. The best man—that is to say, the strongest and cleverest—is likely to get the best woman, in the sense of the most beautiful person. The weak, the feeble, the poor, ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn

... the most skillful sovereigns the world has ever seen. Her nature was full of clear intelligence, with the highest moral and physical courage. She was in every way a better ruler than her own husband, to whom she proved nevertheless an admirable wife, acting independently only where clear principle was at stake. The two greet errors of her reign, the introduction of the Inquisition and the banishment of the Jews, must be charged to the confessor rather than to the Queen, and these were errors in ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... mind this elementary principle, it is obvious that the offense of guiding soldiers to the enemy refers to the physical act of guiding a fugitive soldier back into his lines. A soldier becomes detached from his lines. He finds shelter in a farm house. The farmer, knowing the roads, secretly ...
— The Case of Edith Cavell - A Study of the Rights of Non-Combatants • James M. Beck

... presumptions is this "presumption of innocence." It really doesn't exist, save in the mouths of judges and in the pages of the law books. Yet as much to-do is made about it as if it were a living legal principle. Every judge in a criminal case is required to charge the jury in form or substance somewhat as follows: "The defendant is presumed to be innocent until that presumption is removed by competent evidence"... "This presumption ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... minute and a half like a successful general. It is difficult to be romantic when you are laden with chicken-feed in an unwieldy iron pot, but he had resolved that this portion of the proceedings should be brief. The birds should dine that evening on the quick-lunch principle. Then—to the more fitting surroundings of the rose-garden! There was plenty of time before the hour of the sounding of the dressing-gong. Perhaps, even a row on ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse

... will answer truly! I love Nora; and if I were free to marry, I would make her my wife to-morrow; but I am not; therefore I have been wrong, and very wrong, to seek her society. I acted, however, from want of thought, not from want of principle; I hope you will ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... the advantage of having the hives always well stocked, which is of greater consequence than merely to increase their number; for it has been observed, that if a hive of four thousand bees give six pounds of honey, one of eight thousand will give twenty-four pounds. On this principle it is proper to unite two or more hives, when they happen to be thickly stocked. This may be done by scattering a few handfuls of balm in those hives which are to be united, which by giving them the same ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... didn't see it, and—and so good-bye to my first command! Then"—he smiled ironically—"then I was made prisoner by the French frigates, and have been closely confined ever since, against every decent principle of warfare. And now here ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... car with greater ease and less jerkily as he began to understand the principle of the lever. The cage paused in the black shaft, and he ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... as soon as he reached London, and referred to the dress again. He said such trivial things should never be permitted to come between two people who loved each other. I returned that it was not trivial, but a matter of principle, which I should support. John, it actually parted us. Actually parted ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske

... recourse to it, when your conversation cannot defend you, yet your hearts are the worst of all, and have no uprightness towards God; for you know that what duties you go about, it is not from an inward principle, but from education, or custom, or constraint. Are you upright, when you are forced, for fear of censure, to come here, or to pray at home? Is that sincerity and spiritual worship? And for the ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... sure there is no fear of my trying to intrude myself in that direction, for I am opposed to the thing on principle." ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... human soul, the brotherhood of the race and its vital union with its Creator, and its perfectibility of human institutions and social conditions in this life under the leavening influence of Christian principle, although Mr. Mill may stigmatize them as grandiose and enervating dreams, to his beggarly improved substitute, which appeals neither to our common sense nor to our moral intuitions. Taking his own criterion, utility, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... towards [our own gain by] the finding of {98} beaver; the outlay he was forced to incur was described as dissipation; and his narratives were spoken of as a pack of lies. Envy as it exists in this country is no half envy; its principle is to calumniate furiously in the hope that if even half of what is said finds favour, it will be enough to injure. In point of fact, my father, thus opposed, had to his sorrow been obliged more than once to return and to make us return ...
— Pathfinders of the Great Plains - A Chronicle of La Verendrye and his Sons • Lawrence J. Burpee

... however, it is due to the honor of the United States to declare that no desire of undue aggrandizement has been felt, no claim advanced beyond what a strict construction of their rights will warrant, it is trusted that the pretensions of Great Britain, however unfounded in fact or principle, have been advanced with a like disregard to mere extension of territory, and urged with the same good faith which has uniformly characterized the proceedings of the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... necessity of eating, which the natives ministered to by presenting us with a substantial meal of stewed fowls and sweet potatoes at the nearest shanty. There must have been something intoxicating in the air, for we rode wildly and recklessly, galloping down steep hills (which on principle I object to), and putting our horses to their utmost speed. Mine ran off with me several times, and once nearly upset Mr. M.'s horse, as he probably ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... change in some leading features and principles of the constitution wrought by the Reform Bill of 1832, exceeds any that were enacted by the Bill of Rights or the Act of Settlement. The only absolutely new principle introduced in 1688 was that establishment of Protestant ascendency which was contained in the clause which disabled any Roman Catholic from wearing the crown. In other respects, those great statutes were not so much the introduction of new principles, as ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... unquestionably vindicates and ennobles a conspirator who assassinated the head of the Roman State not because he abused his position but solely because he occupied it, thus affirming the extreme republican principle that all kings, good or bad, should be killed because kingship and freedom cannot live together. Under certain circumstances this vindication and ennoblement might act as an incitement to an actual assassination as well as to Plutarchian republicanism; for it is one thing ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw

... gradually into some irremediable course of action from which it is almost impossible to turn back without difficulty and struggle. There had been a feeling that everything was somehow temporary during those first days at Cosmo Place, which extended into the weeks. Sir William held as a principle, and was quite genuine in his intention when he said it, that young people ought to be left to themselves. He would not, therefore, take up his abode under their roof, but still that he should do so eventually was felt by all concerned as a vague possibility which prevented ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell

... miles of paved streets. Philadelphia was founded by the celebrated William Penn, who went from England to America in 1682 A.D., and purchased the site of this great city from the Indians. William Penn's character was remarkable for his high sense of honour, and if the same principle had obtained throughout the history of the United States with the Indians, we should never have heard of any "Indian Difficulty." Penn presented the city with a charter in 1701. The city, built upon lands honestly and liberally bought from ...
— A start in life • C. F. Dowsett

... had received an order to adjourn. Dissolution was clearly at hand, and the long-suppressed indignation broke out in a scene of strange disorder. The Speaker was held down in the chair, while Eliot, still clinging to his great principle of ministerial responsibility, denounced the new Treasurer as the adviser of the measure. "None have gone about to break Parliaments," he added in words to which after events gave a terrible significance, ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... enforcing the thraldom are as weak in practice as they are unjust in principle. General Gage and the troops under his command are penned up, pining in inglorious inactivity. You may call them an army of safety and of guard, but they are in truth an army of impotence; and to make the folly equal to the disgrace, they ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... delivered, part of another stood ready on the levee to be shipped. The captain was there waiting for his business to begin, the clerk was in his office getting his books ready, the voice of the mate could be heard below, mustering the old crew out and a new crew in; for if steamboat crews have a single principle,—and there are those who deny them any,—it is never to ship twice in succession on the same boat. It was too early yet for any but roustabouts, marketers, and church-goers; so early that even the river was still partly mist-covered; only in places could the swift, ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King

... or, perhaps, attempts—as it so happens without any success—to create sympathy for herself in the United States of America. If, on the other hand, France feels herself in danger, she not only forms an alliance with Russia, but also an entente with England and, on the principle that the friends of one's friends ought to be accepted, produces a further entente between England and Russia. England, on her part, if for whatever reason she feels that she is liable to attack, goes even so far as to make an alliance with an Asiatic nation—Japan—in ...
— Armageddon—And After • W. L. Courtney

... as it has been generally thought, it was a breach of faith in those commanders, and not binding upon the people;*2* and the sooner they could avoid the treachery the better. Then, upon this view of the case, the more wicked were the orders of Lord Cornwallis, issued on the unsound principle of a faithless proclamation. Again, if it was intended as a covenant; as the paroles issued under it made them prisoners; the people, from the terms and the nature of it, ought to have been suffered ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James

... fool. I is too shame to beg. I wants de pension. Is you gwine to tell me 'bout it? Dis de truth, I is took a chip fer food. If I could got to school and write fast as I can shake my fist, I'd be a-giving out dat pension right fast. I likes character and principle. I got a boy turned into 64 years. He got character and principle, and he still do what I say. I never put my mouth amongst old folks when I was young. Me and Zack often talks over ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various



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