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The great difficulty with politics is, that there are no established principles.

 

Napoleon Bonaparte

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It is not true that people of high principles are ill-suited for politics. High principles have only to be accompanied by patience, consideration, a sense of measure and understanding for others. It is not true that only coldhearted, cynical, arrogant, haughty or brawling persons succeed in politics. Such people are naturally attracted by politics. In the end, however, politeness and good manners weigh more.

 

Vaclav Havel

 

Without some knowledge of Constitutional History it is absolutely impossible to do justice to the characters and positions of the actors in the great drama; absolutely impossible to understand the origin of parties, the development of principles, the growth of nations in spite of parties and in defiance of principles. It alone can teach why it is that in politics good men do not always think alike, that the worst cause has often been illustrated with the most heroic virtue, and that the world owes some of its greatest debts to men from whose very memory it recoils.

 

William Stubbs

 

What are some principles worth living by? Ask a roomful of people, and you will get a roomful of answers. There already exists a code of principles established thousands of years ago and adhered to by people from a variety of religious backgrounds. It has been accepted as a basis for appropriate behavior. Fortunately, no one has copyrighted the Ten Commandments.

 

Mike Huckabee

 

One finds in this subject a kind of demonstration which does not carry with it so high a degree of certainty as that employed in geometry; and which differs distinctly from the method employed by geometers in that they prove their propositions by well-established and incontrovertible principles, while here principles are tested by inferences which are derivable from them. The nature of the subject permits of no other treatment. It is possible, however, in this way to establish a probability which is little short of certainty. This is the case when the consequences of the assumed principles are in perfect accord with the observed phenomena, and especially when these verifications are numerous; but above all when one employs the hypothesis to predict new phenomena and finds his expectations realized.

 

Christiaan Huygens

 

But if this is good in itself it is infinitely more important, in my opinion, as a sign of that new spirit which is passing from municipal into Imperial politics, which aims more at the improvement of the lot of the worker and the toiler than at those great constitutional effects in which past Parliaments have taken as their pride. To what do you attribute that spirit? I attribute it to two things. In the first place, I believe as England has been governed under various suffrages for the benefit of various sections, that now the suffrage has been made accessible to all it is about to be governed for all. (Cheers.) in the next place, I believe in the further course of the lowering of that suffrage we somewhere or other lit upon the conscience of the community. I believe that at last the community has awoke to its liabilities and duties to all ranks and classes. And I believe the people are now inclined to think that politics is not merely a game at which the pawns have to be sacrificed to the knights and castles (cheers), but is an elevating and ennobling effort to carry into practical politics and practical life the principles of a higher morality. I believe that increasingly Governments will be judged by that test. I believe the people are coming to recognize that in that spirit alone must Governments be carried on. It is all very well to make great speeches and to win great divisions. It is well to speak with authority in the councils of the world and to see your navies riding on every sea, and to see your flag on every shore. That is well, but it is not all. I am certain that there is a party in this country not named as yet that is disconnected with any existing political organization, a party which is inclined to say, "A plague on both your Houses, a plague on all your parties, a plague on all your politics, a plague on your ending discussions which yield so little fruit." (Cheers.) "Have done with this unending talk and come down and do something for the people." It is this spirit which animates, as I believe, the great masses of our artisans, the great masses of our working clergy, the great masses of those who work for and with the poor, and who for the want of a better word I am compelled to call by the bastard term of philanthropists.

 

Archibald Primrose Rosebery