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Principled   /prˈɪnsəpəld/   Listen
Principled

adjective
1.
Based on or manifesting objectively defined standards of rightness or morality.  "A principled person"



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"Principled" Quotes from Famous Books



... I could even remember my father or my mother, or anybody that really belonged to me!" Eleanor said; then, feeling that she was making an appeal for sympathy, a thing which she was principled against doing, she turned her eyes away from the tender, beguiling colour behind the chimneys, and looked, instead, at the big oil portrait on the wall. "It's something to have even a painted grandfather ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller

... woefully tired, never flagged, but were ready to recount the events of the day, to turn them into ridicule, and to mimic, with admirable fidelity, any person gifted with an absurdity who had fallen under her keen eye. But the mother was lightly principled like Sally herself; nor was there need to conceal from her the reason why Mr. Carson gave her so much money. She chuckled with pleasure, and only hoped that the wooing would ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... joined the salaried Staff, and three years later he was appointed to the Table. He had a very quaint humour and a wonderfully quick and startling sense of the incongruous. He was sadly hampered by his affliction, but he was an accomplished, high-principled, sensitive fellow, of whom one of his companions declared that "he was the purest-minded man I ever knew." Under more favourable conditions of health he would probably have made a greater mark; but as it was, he did good work. He was a happy parodist, ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... think there is some reason for questioning whether the body and mind are not so proportioned, that the one can bear all which can be inflicted on the other; whether virtue cannot stand its ground as long as life, and whether a soul well principled, will not be ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... I had to face a problem that confronts thousands of high principled young women, widows, divorcees, in America and in all countries—how could I bear the torture of this immense loneliness? How could I adjust myself to life without the intimate companionship of a man? How could I satisfy ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett

... old, and since then she had always done exactly as she pleased; her father would not control her, and her eldest sister, who took charge of the family in her mother's place, could not. It was well that the girl had no evil tendencies and was, upon the whole, well-principled, warm-hearted, and good-natured, or she might have gone very grievously astray. As it was, she was now at seventeen a bright butterfly, flitting from one to another of the flowers of life, and sipping as much honey as she could from ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow

... woman to inspire love, though she was certainly good-looking. At her very best, there was nothing in her; at her worst, she was ignorant, and vain, and utterly unprincipled—no, not exactly unprincipled, but non-principled. She was essentially low—if you understand my meaning— low in her tastes and aspirations, low in her likes and dislikes, low in her thoughts and her language, low in everything. She may not have been what is called a bad woman, but—that ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... do everything also for God's eye and according to the principled of righteousness. The consecrated mechanic must put absolute truth into every piece of work he does. The consecrated business man must conduct his business on the principles of divine righteousness. The consecrated millionaire must get his money on God's altar, so that ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller

... thinking that Guy did not yet feel himself out of his leading-strings, and was still on his good behaviour. After such a flash as this there was no fear, but there was that in him which would create mischief and disturbance enough. Charles was well principled at the bottom, and would have shrunk with horror had it been set before him how dangerous might be the effect of destroying the chance of a friendship between Guy and the only person whose guidance ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... this chamber, and in our country, did not support the liberation of Iraq. Objections to war often come from principled motives. But let us be candid about the consequences of leaving Saddam Hussein in power. We're seeking all the facts. Already, the Kay Report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... Corwin, that some observation I made upon political normality seemed to strike him as a new thought; suppose it was a topic seldom touched upon in Washington society. It led to a good deal of conversation, then and afterwards; and I must say that a more high-principled and religiously minded statesman I have never met ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey

... an awful fool on many occasions at that time, and I was conscious of it myself. What made it worse was that I felt that 'Katenka' was not an innocent boarding-school miss, but a person of character, proud and really high-principled; above all, she had education and intellect, and I had neither. You think I meant to make her an offer? No, I simply wanted to revenge myself, because I was such a hero and she didn't seem to ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... the relief which vice alone gave to the poverty and gloom of her home. George, the brother, with whom Mary afterwards corresponded for so many years, was unhappy because of his unrequited love for Everina Wollstonecraft. He was an honest, good-principled young man, but his associates were disreputable, and he was at times compromised by their actions. But still sadder for Mary was the fact that Fanny, in addition to domestic grievances, was tortured by the unkindness of an uncertain lover. She had met, ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... societies who followed faithful Mr. Renwick, and was for some time most zealous for that cause; for which he was apprehended, but rescued at Enterkine-path, August 1684, when going to Edinburgh; at which some of the sufferers were not a little (if not too much) elated. But never being right principled, as Mr. Peden perceived, when he refused to sail the sea with him from Ireland before this. He first fell in with Langlands and Barclay in favour of Argyle's attempt, 1685, and from that time he became a most violent traducer and reproacher of Mr. Renwick and the faithful party ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... connection with Mr. Shoreham, and confessed the nature of his suit. I was present at this interview, and it would be unjust to say that the mother was not disappointed. Still she behaved generously, and like a high principled woman. Adrienne was advised to accept Betts, and her scruples, on the score of money, were gradually removed, ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper

... post, and to get him a ship. He succeeded at last; but he never gave the least hint that it was done by his interest; for, he said, he knew that Walsingham had such nice notions, and was such a proud principled fellow, that he would not enjoy his promotion, if he thought he owed it to any thing upon earth but his own merit. So a handsome letter was written by the secretary of the Admiralty to Captain Walsingham, by their lordships' desire, informing him, 'that in consideration of his services and merit, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... free soil of America, was unjust and worse to the slave-owner, who, to say the least, was in no way responsible for the inhuman and shortsighted policy of a former generation; on the other hand the high-principled Southerner, although in his heart deploring the condition of the negro, and sometimes imitating the example of Washington, whose dying bequest gave freedom to his slaves, made no attempt to find a remedy.* (* On the publication of ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... High Commissioner in South Africa—a position always difficult, but now more than ever arduous and responsible. To nine out of every ten men with whom he had been brought into contact there was little in Sir Alfred Milner—as he then was—to distinguish him from other high-principled, capable, and pleasant-mannered heads of departments in the Civil Service. His metier was finance, and his accomplishment literature. Commencing with journalism and an unsuccessful contest (in the Liberal interest) for the Harrow division of Middlesex, ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold

... a girl can be found, thus beautifully attractive in every one's eye, and not partially so only in a young gentle man's own; and after that (what good persons would infinitely prefer to beauty), thus piously principled; thus genteely educated and accomplished; thus brilliantly witty; thus prudent, modest, generous, undesigning; and having been thus tempted, thus tried, by the man she hated not, pursued (not intriguingly pursuing), be thus inflexibly virtuous, and proof against temptation: let her reform her libertine, ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... manners of the world than Norah, though in reality equally artless and unsophisticated; while she was able to take her part in conversation on any of the topics of the day, of which, naturally, Norah knew but little. She was amiable, lively, and right-principled, and altogether allowed to be a very charming girl, the pride of her father, who had no other child. She was therefore, of course, looked upon as an heiress; she did not, however, give herself any airs, but was thoroughly unaffected, her ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... of his brethren and associates a series of somewhat stringent rules and punishments, to which, it must be acknowledged, he cheerfully submitted himself. At the same time, he was aware that even the most moral and high-principled government has occasionally to assert itself with rude physical force; and although his hand was not particularly red, as might have been expected, it was uncommonly hard, and a cuff from it was understood to produce ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black

... the ermine, than when he took the emetic. I confess I do not love him the better, as some mercenaries in England and Scotland do, for having been the enemy of my country; nor should I love him the less for it, had his enmity been principled and manly. In what manner did this cruel wretch treat his enthusiastic admirer and humble follower, Toussaint l'Ouverture? He was thrown into a subterranean call, solitary, dark, damp, pestiferously unclean, where rheumatism racked his limbs, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... what the judge said, but not all—bits here and there. The jury had brought in a most righteous verdict; just what he should have expected from the effect of the evidence upon an intelligent, well-principled Nomah jury. (We heard afterwards that they were six to six, and then agreed to toss up how the verdict was to go.) 'The crime of cattle and horse stealing had assumed gigantic proportions. Sheep, as yet, appeared to be safe; but then there ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... great common-sense, deliberate and practical as that class is, and tenfold more so. He was like the best of those who stood at Concord Bridge once, on Lexington Common, and on Bunker Hill, only he was firmer and higher principled than any that I have chanced to hear of as there. It was no abolition lecturer that converted him. Ethan Allen and Stark, with whom he may in some respects be compared, were rangers in a lower ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau

... tide-flow system. Slave prices everywhere, like those of most other investments, were declining in so disquieting a manner that as late as the end of 1794 George Washington advised a friend to convert his slaves into other forms of property, and said on his own account: "Were it not that I am principled against selling negroes, as you would cattle in a market, I would not in twelve months hence be possessed of a single one as a slave. I shall be happily mistaken if they are not found to be a very troublesome species of property ere many years have ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... is a delightful little creature, the very reverse of the other Bell(159) in appearance and disposition, for she is handsome and open and gay; but I hope, at the same time, her resemblance in character, as Bell is strictly principled and upright. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... an attempt to supply high-principled and high-toned Literature of a secular kind, which may be safely taken up by thoughtful persons when their more serious reading is over, and which may also indirectly act for good on those who thrust all ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 182, April 23, 1853 • Various

... rich so fast as the unscrupulous and dishonest one; but the success will be of a truer kind, earned without fraud or injustice. And even though a man should for a time be unsuccessful, still he must be honest: better lose all and save character. For character is itself a fortune; and if the high-principled man will but hold on his way courageously, success will surely come,—nor will the highest reward of all be withheld from him. Wordsworth well describes the ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... a model boy—as we have seen, he didn't shrink from meanness—but it was not without reluctance that he assented to James Congreve's proposal. He did not feel that abhorrence of theft that a better principled boy would have done, but the thought of resorting to it gave him a sense of humiliation. Besides, the fear of detection inspired in him a certain uneasy feeling. In fact, he retraced his steps, and sought Congreve in ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger

... appearance," Wilmore remarked, as he called the waiter to bring some cigarettes, "I should never have imagined that he was anything else save a high-principled, well-born, straightforward sort of chap. I never saw a less criminal ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... houses of worship had been desecrated or destroyed. The Episcopalian and Methodist ministers were generally Tories, and their churches, and in some instances their persons, were not spared by the patriots. The Friends and the Moravians, principled against taking active part in warfare, were exposed to aggressions from both sides. All other sects were safely presumed to be in earnest sympathy with the cause of independence, which many of their pastors actively served as chaplains or as combatants, or in ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... natives were "British to a man!" They were thoroughly sick of Boer cruelty, and the Kaffirs and Basutos had learnt to look to Great Britain for a reign of peace. Rather than again be ruled by the Boer despots, they were ready to spill the last drop of their blood, and only the high principled, almost quixotic action of the British officials prevented the utilisation in extremity of this massive and effective weapon of defence. Besides the garrison in Pretoria there were other forts defended by soldiers and loyalists, forts ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... not repented of his philanthropy, he was too highly principled for that, but though he would not have confessed it to his wife for worlds, he was a little alarmed at the responsibility so ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... circumstances of his marriage and assuring him of his continued loyalty, and to the Duke of Hamilton, whose daughter was to be married to young Lord Cochrane, testifying to the integrity of Jean. "For the young lady herself, I shall answer for her. Had she been right principled she would never in despyt of her mother and relations made choyse of a persecutor, as they call me. So, whoever think to misrepresent me on that head will find themselves mistaken; for both the king ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... horse, whose very hide has deteriorated in value. Not to mention that the worst interpretation will be put upon your late dismissal; you will be credited with adultery, or poisoning, or something of that kind. Your accuser, you see, is convincing even in silence; whereas you—you are a loose- principled, unscrupulous Greek. That is the character we Greeks bear; and it serves us right; I see excellent grounds for the opinion they have of us. Greek after Greek who enters their service sets up (in default of any other practical knowledge) for wizard or poisoner, and deals in love-charms ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... of the yearly meeting is to ascertain the amount of the money, called "FRIENDS SUFFERINGS," that is of the money, or the value of the goods, that have been taken from the Quakers for [29] tithes and church dues; for the society are principled against the maintenance of any religious ministry, and of course cannot conscientiously pay toward the support of the established church. In consequence of their refusal of payment in the latter case, their goods are seized by a law-process, and sold to ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... violent temper, which had brought him early into life into the dreadful situation in which he now stands? And at the moment when, covered with the blood of an innocent man, he stood before her, an object of disgust and horror; could any sentiment like love exist or arise in a well-principled mind? ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... severer hardships in the road of death than this poor man did, for by the time sentence was passed, all that he had was gone, and he had scarce a blanket to cover him from downright nakedness, during the space he lay in the hold under sentence. As he was better principled in religion than any of the other malefactors, he had retained his reading so well as to assist them in their devotions, and to supply in some measure the want of somebody constantly to attend them in their preparation ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... don't believe there's a soul, in the hotel or out of it, that hasn't paid at least a dollar to hear you; and that makes it so very embarrassing. Oh, dear Mr. Homos! You won't be so implacably high-principled as all that! Think that you are doing it for ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells

... little mysterious impresses people's minds. The better principled, the higher natured among the officers conceived respect for her. The feeling spread, and bore fruit. With disciplined wills, nothing takes ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson

... actress may be well-principled, honest, honorable, and modest, too, as any woman living. I asked if this woman, Olympia, the patroness, mother, or what you will, of this new ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens

... Georgia were all persons of like character, combining a mixture of English, Irish, and Scotch blood. They were enterprising, daring, and remarkable for great good sense. Rude from the want of education and association with a more polished people, they were nevertheless high-principled and full of that chivalrous spirit which prompts a natural courtesy, courts danger, and scorns the little and mean—open-handed in their generosity, and eminently candid and honest in all their intercourse and dealings with their fellow-men. These ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... sincere speech, interest me greatly." It was but natural that the tender, wistful courtesies and considerate deference of this masterful suitor should be pleasing to Esther's womanly spirit. This high-principled girl, strong for self-sacrifice upon the altar of duty, was intensely human. Oswald felt this charm, and readily ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... tinder—and the flames rush and roar over the prairie in a manner frightful to behold. They usually burn better than mine is burning to-night. I try to make my prairie burn regularly—and not disappoint the public—but it is not as high-principled as I am. (The scene was a transparent one—the light from behind so managed as to give the effect of the prairie on fire. Artemus enjoyed the joke of letting the fire go out occasionally, and then allowing it ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 6 • Charles Farrar Browne

... dying of consumption, and a young marquess cousin is, perhaps, inevitable. Lord Rotherwood was Mr. Mohun's ward, and having a dull home of his own, found his chief happiness as well as all the best influences of his life, in the merry, highly-principled, though easy-going life at his uncle's, whom he revered like a father, while his eager, somewhat shatter-brained nature often made him a butt to his cousins. All this may account for the tone of camaraderie with which the scattered members ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... bishops. All save two were against it. He valued the support of the Church, and declared himself against the bill, which was rejected by a majority of 78. In 1789 the majority against it sank to 22. Yet Pitt was thoroughly high-principled. As we shall see later in the case of Hastings, he would not be false to his convictions, and if he judged that a cause was worth maintaining, even at the cost of weakening his own position, he did ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... ("Louis XVII") in the year 1795; he replaced the revolutionary tricolor by the white and lilies of his family; out of the fullness of his divinely bestowed royal authority he granted a charter to the French people. But Louis XVIII was neither so foolish nor so principled as to insist upon the substance of Bourbon autocracy: the very Constitutional Charter, which he so graciously promulgated, confirmed the Revolutionary liberties of the individual and established a fairly liberal form of ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... decline observation.' Or, take another Sabbath-day entry: 'Die Dom. I stayed at home, because of the time, and the observation, and the Earl of Moray . . . Came to Cuttiehillock. I am neither cold nor hot. I am not rightly principled as to the time. I suspect that it is not all conscience that makes me conform, but wit, and to avoid suffering; Lord, deliver me from all this unsoundness of heart.' And after this miserable fashion do ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte

... denominations, taken as a body, comprises the best and most conscientious people in the country. I do not say it comprises none but these, or that none such are found out of it, but only if a census were taken of the purest and most high principled men and women of the country, the majority of them would be found to be professors of religion in some of the various Christian denominations. This fact has given to the church great weight in this country—the general and predominant spirit of intelligence and probity and piety of its majority ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... an excuse for the liberty I take in addressing you on this subject which is so particularly interesting to me, that from the time I was capable of reflecting on the nature of political society, and of the rights appertaining to man, I have not only been principled against slavery, but have had feelings so repugnant to it as to decide me not to hold them; which decision has forced me to leave my native State, and with it all my relations and friends. This, I hope, will be deemed by you some excuse ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... Victoria cried, "I can't believe that of the people I see about here! They seem so kind and honest and high-principled." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... hear the Gospel preached, whilst one of the house, with drawn sword, stood at the threshold prepared to defend with his life both minister and congregation. From this sturdy stock sprang Jacob, the father of Hannah More. He married a sensible, high-principled farmer's daughter. A family of five girls was born to them, the fourth being Hannah, whose birth occurred on the 2nd of ...
— Excellent Women • Various

... the glory, at once, and the best security of nations. If, a little later, they pursued the phantom instead of the reality, it must be considered that, as yet, they had no political education or experience, and that no high-principled Tribune, like O'Connell, stood forward to lead them. All who aspired to guide them, and who won their confidence, were tainted with the doctrines of the Socialist party, whose ideas of government and liberty ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... him, his appointed work and trial for the time being. And Tom was becoming a new boy, though with frequent tumbles in the dirt and perpetual hard battle with himself, and was daily growing in manfulness and thoughtfulness, as every high-couraged and well-principled boy must, when he finds himself for the first time consciously at grips with self and the devil. Already he could turn almost without a sigh from the School-gates, from which had just scampered off East and three or four others of his own particular set, bound ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes



Words linked to "Principled" :   high-principled, unprincipled, scrupulous



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