Principles are laws or rules that have to be, or usually are followed, or can be desirably followed, or are an inevitable consequence of something, such as the laws observed in nature or the way that a system is constructed. The principles of such a system are understood by its users as the essential characteristics of the system, or reflecting system's designed purpose, and the effective operation or use of which would be impossible if any one of the principles was to be ignored.
- A precedent embalms a principle.
- Benjamin Disraeli, speech on the Expenditures of the Country (February 22, 1848); reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 633.
- I don't believe in princerple,
But, oh, I du in interest.
- James Russell Lowell, The Biglow Papers (1848), First Series. No, VI, Stanza 9.
- Ez to my princerples, I glory
In hevin' nothin' o' the sort.
- James Russell Lowell, The Biglow Papers (1848), First Series. No, VII, Stanza 10.
- Treat the negro as a citizen and a voter, as he is and must remain, and soon parties will be divided, not on the color line, but on principle.
- Ulysses S. Grant, Sixth State of the Union Address (1874).