Guiding Principles Quotes

There are only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it.

Very few people or companies can clearly articulate WHY they do WHAT they do. By WHY I mean your purpose, cause or belief - WHY does your company exist? WHY do you get out of bed every morning? And WHY should anyone care?

People don't buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it.

We are drawn to leaders and organizations that are good at communicating what they believe. Their ability to make us feel like we belong, to make us feel special, safe and not alone is part of what gives them the ability to inspire us.

For values or guiding principles to be truly effective they have to be verbs. It's not "integrity," it's "always do the right thing." It's not "innovation," it's "look at the problem from a different angle." Articulating our values as verbs gives us a clear idea - we have a clear idea of how to act in any situation.

Happy employees ensure happy customers. And happy customers ensure happy shareholders - in that order.

Leading is not the same as being the leader. Being the leader means you hold the highest rank, either by earning it, good fortune or navigating internal politics. Leading, however, means that others willingly follow you - not because they have to, not because they are paid to, but because they want to.

You don't hire for skills, you hire for attitude. You can always teach skills.

Simon Sinek

By building a simple system, with just a few guiding principles, eBay was open to organic growth. ~ Pierre Omidyar

I don't have a ready-made formula to apply when I embark on a new book, but my guiding principles are discipline, compassion and a sincere eagerness to understand myself. ~ Paulo Coelho

The principles that guide your decisions as a leader must not be contradictory to your personal values. Your personal values must lay the strong foundation on which you build your leadership tenets. In becoming a principle-centred leader, these leadership values become your guiding principles and lenses for decision making. ~ Archibald Marwizi

I deplore brutality," he said. "It's not efficient. On the other hand, prolonged mistreatment, short of physical violence, gives rise, when skillfully applied, to anxiety and a feeling of special guilt. A few rules or rather guiding principles are to be borne in mind. The subject must not realize that the mistreatment is a deliberate attack of an anti-human enemy on his personal identity. He must be made to feel that he deserves any treatment he receives because there is something (never specified) horribly wrong with him. The naked need of the control addicts must be decently covered by an arbitrary and intricate bureaucracy so that the subject cannot contact his enemy," direct. ~ William S. Burroughs

For the child whose impulsiveness is indulged, who retains his primitive-discharge mechanisms, is not only an ill-behaved child but a child whose intellectual development is slowed down. No matter how well he is endowed intellectually, if direct action and immediate gratification are the guiding principles of his behavior, there will be less incentive to develop the higher mental processes, to reason, to employ the imagination creatively ... ~ Selma Fraiberg

I sort of use as my guiding principle that show The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. Whenever possible, do the stupid thing. ~ Moby

Chivalry - ... a romantic idealism closely related to Christianity, which makes honor the guiding principle of conduct. Connected with this is the ancient concept of the gentleman. ~ Richard M. Weaver

For values or guiding principles to be truly effective they have to be verbs. It's not "integrity," it's "always do the right thing." It's not "innovation," it's "look at the problem from a different angle." Articulating our values as verbs gives us a clear idea ... we ~ Simon Sinek

There is no guiding principle, because the work that is created in collaborations should be created from its own principles. ~ Eyvind Kang

The integrity of the upright provides guiding principles that help him to achieve his vision. Hard work without integrity will lead to struggles and frustration ~ Prince Akwarandu

Reason as an organ for perceiving the true nature of reality and determining the guiding principles of our lives has come to be regarded as obsolete. ~ Max Horkheimer

We must convince and empower people to adopt the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity as their guiding principle. ~ Klaus Topfer

What I remember most clearly was that when I put down a suggestion that seemed to me cogent and reasonable, Einstein did not in the least contest this, but he only said, 'Oh, how ugly.' As soon as an equation seemed to him to be ugly, he really rather lost interest in it and could not understand why somebody else was willing to spend much time on it. He was quite convinced that beauty was a guiding principle in the search for important results in theoretical physics. ~ Hermann Bondi

I think the guiding principle for me is working with people, because I don't know how long it's going to last, I want to seize the moment and work with people I want to work with. ~ Tony Scott

Determine where you are and where you wish to be. Then use all of your self-effort to make that happen, following the guiding principles of all the Buddhas and bohisattvas and seekers of the dharma, of enlightenment. ~ Frederick Lenz

Values are the guiding principles that help you determine what is right or wrong. ~ Glenn C. Stewart

As a guiding principle I believe that every poem must be its own sole freshly created universe, and therefore have no belief n 'tradition' or a common myth-kitty or casual allusions in poems to other poems or poets, which last I find unpleasantly like the talk of literary understrappers letting you see they know the right people. ~ Philip Larkin

I picked such seemingly disparate essays, I thought it was important to say what was the guiding principle in the selection rather than focus on any one essay. I reached for some principle that had been subconscious in me and lifted it into consciousness. Authenticity and sincerity were the most important unifying principles of all these apparently different essays. ~ Alan Lightman

To have a reason to get up in the morning, it is necessary to have some kind of guiding principle. A belief of some kind ~ Judith Guest

All these guiding principles in therapy confront the doctor with important ethical duties which can be summed up in the single rule: be the man through whom you wish to influence others. ~ C. G. Jung

Before you disagree make sure you understand. In other words, we must make sure that we can describe another's theological position as he would describe it before we criticize or condemn. Another guiding principle should be 'Do not impute to others beliefs you regard as logically entailed by their beliefs but that they explicitly deny'. ~ Roger E. Olson

One of the guiding principles of Altuzarra is that fashion can be transformative, changing not just the way you look, but also the way you feel. By partnering with Target, we hope to bring that same experience to a much broader range of women. ~ Joseph Altuzarra

Move forward and let others do the same. Simple. This is a guiding principle everyone should have. ~ Pope Francis

The only guiding principle you can use is to make something that you want to see. ~ Thomas Tull

One of my guiding principles is don't do anything that other people are doing. Always do something a little different if you can. The concept is that if you do it a little differently there is a greater potential for reward than if you the same thing that other people are doing. I think that this kind of goal for one's work, having obviously the maximum risk, would have the maximum reward no matter what the field may be. ~ Seymour Cray

My mother was the source from which I derived the guiding principles of my life. ~ John Wesley

Because, if you stop to think of it, the three Rules of Robotics are the essential guiding principles of a good many of the world's ethical systems. Of course, every human being is supposed to have the instinct of self-preservation. That's Rule Three to a robot. Also every 'good' human being, with a social conscience and a sense of responsibility, is supposed to defer to proper authority; to listen to his doctor, his boss, his government, his psychiatrist, his fellow man; to obey laws, to follow rules, to conform to custom - even when they interfere with his comfort or his safety. That's Rule Two to a robot. Also, every 'good' human being is supposed to love others as himself, protect his fellow man, risk his life to save another. That's Rule One to a robot. To put it simply - if Byerley follows all the Rules of Robotics, he may be a robot, and may simply be a very good man. ~ Isaac Asimov

rinciples, or "rules" in complexity theory terminology, affect how tools and practices are implemented. Practices are how principles are acted out. Grand principles that generate no action are mere vapor. Conversely, specific practices in the absence of guiding principles are often inappropriately used. Although the use of agile practices may vary from team to team, the principles are constant. Principles are the simple rules of complex human adaptive systems. ~ Jim Highsmith

Being an art form, verse cannot be "free" in the sense of having no limitations or guiding principle. ~ William Carlos Williams

[W]hen you make your mistakes in public you will learn that they are mistakes and in being corrected you will grow. It also reminded me that being wrong and responding to correction with resilience was a higher virtue than covering up your mistakes so your students and the watching world assumed that success meant never being wrong. Working from your strengths and cultivating resilience in all matters of life have always been guiding principles for me. ~ Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

When we use love and compassion as our guiding principles we can create, develop and implement systems of change that are beneficial to all sentient beings and to the environment. ~ Joaquin Phoenix

To approach these problems we once again rely on one of our guiding principles: transparency. ~ Richard H. Thaler

As a guiding principle, life shrinks and life expands in direct proportion to your willingness to assume risk. ~ Casey Neistat

We strive to hire and retain only those who embrace our MBM Guiding Principles, which encompass integrity, compliance, value creation, Principled Entrepreneurship, customer focus, knowledge, change, humility, respect and fulfillment. ~ Charles Koch

The Eight Guiding Principles to Living a Spiritually Reliable Life: 1) I am committed to Divine higher guidance and I understand that I co-create my life with the Divine. 2) I am willing to be utilized for a greater higher purpose. 3) I operate from a high level intention to serve. 4) My contribution to the world is an up level and I ask myself: How can I serve, rather than what can I get? 5) I take time to breathe, get calm and quiet my mind in order to hear God's whispers. 6) I hear, feel, see and sense Divine guidance as it arrives. 7) I show up where God needs me next, and in doing so, this allows my life to be utilized for a greater higher purpose. 8) I know that I am always connected to the Divine without interruption and there is no place God is not. ~ Richard Seaman

For, despite all our vague talk of ancient or medieval "science," pagan, Muslim, or Christian, what we mean today by science - its methods, its controls and guiding principles, its desire to unite theory to empirical discovery, its trust in a unified set of physical laws, and so on - came into existence, for whatever reasons, and for better or worse, only within Christendom, and under the hands of believing Christians. ~ David Bentley Hart

A human language is a system of remarkable complexity. To come to know a human language would be an extraordinary achievement for a creature not specifically designed to accomplish this task. A normal child acquires this knowledge on relatively slight exposure and without specific training. He can then quite effortlessly make use of an intricate structure of specific rules and guiding principles to convey his thoughts and feelings to others, arousing in them novel ideas and subtle perceptions and judgments. ~ Noam Chomsky

(Waste = Loss): The first rule of business is to survive and the guiding principle of business economics is not the maximisation of profit, it is the avoidance of loss ~ Peter Drucker

I have great faith in optimism as a guiding principle, if only because it offers us the opportunity of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. ~ Arthur C. Clarke

It is the nature and pleasure of townspeople to distrust the city. All the guiding principles that might flow from a center of ideas and cultural energies are regarded as corrupt, one or another kind of pornography. This is how it is with towns. ~ Don DeLillo

The task of the political philosopher can only be to influence public opinion, not to organize people for action. He will do so effectively only if he is not concerned with what is now politically possible but consistently defends the "general principles which are always the same." In this sense I doubt whether there can be such a thing as a conservative political philosophy. Conservatism may often be a useful practical maxim, but it does not give us any guiding principles which can influence long-range developments. ~ Friedrich August Von Hayek

You are a spiritual being with human body. Well-being, love, and kindness are your guiding principles. ~ Debasish Mridha

He told Burton to always keep the initiative. "And you must never panic. When they surprise you, even if the surprise seems fatal, there is always a countermove." Boyd gave Burton three guiding principles. The first was the most difficult and most familiar to anyone who had worked with Boyd. "Jim, you can never be wrong. You have to do your homework. If you make a technical statement, you better be right. If you are not, they will hose you . And if they hose you, you've had it. Because once you loose credibility and you are no longer a threat, no one will pay attention to what you say. They won't respect you and they won't pay attention to you ~ Robert Coram

When we assume God to be a guiding principle well, sure enough, a god is usually characteristic of a certain system of thought or morality. For instance, take the Christian God, the summum bonum : God is love, love being the highest moral principle; and God is spirit, the spirit being the supreme idea of meaning. All our Christian moral concepts derive from such assumptions, and the supreme essence of all of them is what we call God. ~ Carl Jung

Tenderness and respect-never selfishness-must be the guiding principles in the intimate relationship between husband and wife ~ Howard W. Hunter

We need in this generation, as we have had them in the past, men of conscience, driven, even against their wills, certainly against their own interest, to take a stand for principles. Men not afraid of facing unpleasant facts, not afraid of being different in their views from other people, men who cannot rest so long as opportunities remain to work for the really great human objectives–peace, justice, honesty and decency between men. ~ Sir James Darling

Every human being asks pertinent questions regarding how to live, what to believe in, and what we aspire to become. Throughout life, we question what desires and principles to value and prioritize – love, friendship, freedom, happiness, creativity, wealth, security. We make difficult decisions based upon what we trust constitutes ethical behavior. We balance out work and play by considering what a person's time is worth. We encounter both joyful and unpleasant physical experiences. As we age, we modify some of our youthful assumptions and question the existence of a mystical and divine world. We engage in formal and informal educational activities, which edifying foundation support modest or dramatic shifts in our instinctive and learned behavior patterns, and alter our intellectual and emotional perspective. Each person aspires to live honorably and age gracefully despite encountering physical adversity, financial hardships, sickness, or injury. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

You see that God deems it right to take from me any claim to merit for what you call my devotion to you. I have promised to remain forever with you, and now I could not break my promise if I would. The treasure will be no more mine than yours, and neither of us will quit this prison. But my real treasure is not that, my dear friend, which awaits me beneath the somber rocks of Monte Cristo, it is your presence, our living together five or six hours a day, in spite of our jailers; it is the rays of intelligence you have elicited from my brain, the languages you have implanted in my memory, and which have taken root there with all of their philological ramifications. These different sciences that you have made so easy to me by the depth of the knowledge you possess of them, and the clearness of the principles to which you have reduced them – this is my treasure, my beloved friend, and with this you have made me rich and happy. Believe me, and take comfort, this is better for me than tons of gold and cases of diamonds, even were they not as problematical as the clouds we see in the morning floating over the sea, which we take for terra firma, and which evaporate and vanish as we draw near to them. To have you as long as possible near me, to hear your eloquent speech, -- which embellishes my mind, strengthens my soul, and makes my whole frame capable of great and terrible things, if I should ever be free, -- so fills my whole existence, that the despair to which I was just on the ~ Alexandre Dumas

A man of principles is a man of his word ~ Topsy Gift

Tony Blair has turned his back on the principles he claimed he believed in before he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with George W. Bush. He was an entirely different kind of leader. ~ Bianca Jagger

Putting first things first means organizing and executing around your most important priorities. It is living and being driven by the principles you value most, not by the agendas and forces surrounding you. ~ Stephen Covey

True love is a high and holy principle, altogether different in character from that love which is awakened by impulse and which suddenly dies when severely tested. ~ Ellen G. White

A renewed commitment to the freedom and opportunity of our people is the touchstone of our time. In this new century, where tests are many and challenges change with the shifting of the wind, we must hold fast to the principles that have made our nation the envy of the world. ~ Bill Owens

Philosophy would long ago have reached a high level if our predecessors and fathers had put this into practice; and we would not waste time on the primary difficulties, which appear now as severe as in the first centuries which noticed them. We would have the experience of assured phenomena, which would serve as principles for a solid reasoning; truth would not be so deeply sunken; nature would have taken off most of her envelopes; one would see the marvels she contains in all her individuals ... ~ Marin Mersenne

Propensities and principles must be reconciled by some means. ~ Charlotte Bronte

There can be no justification for harboring those who enjoy the benefits of living in our republic while trying destroy it, so why not deny entry to those who harbor ill will to our Constitution and our founding principles? We are not obligated to aid and abet our own destruction. ~ Mike Klepper

There was one titanic guiding light on the film set, and I was in the presence of a true Mahatma, in the deepest and most profound sense of the word. ~ Ben Kingsley

The labor movement is organized upon a principle that the strong shall help the weak. ~ John L. Lewis

And is it not sects, bodies of definite, uncompromising principles, that lead us into revolutions? ~ Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

To the less privileged it was this arbitrariness that made the regime's power feel so oppressive. There were no clear principles or regulations which enabled the individual to challenge authority or the state. ~ Orlando Figes

I think that water is a tremendous organizing principle. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

I try to speak in everyday language. I feel like God has gifted me to take Bible principles and make them practical. ~ Joel Osteen

Many worry about their outer appearance much more then their inner bearing. It's nice to have great and expensive things such as cars and houses but even better to know the greater principles in life to help maintain and keep them. ~ Timothy Pina

The religious stories, the religious truths, the spiritual principles - obviously, they don't change. But as you get older and you experience more, you recognize the applicability, the profundity, and the fundamental truths of spiritual principles in ways that you couldn't when you simply were living a less dimensional life. ~ Marianne Williamson

Nationalists reflexively rebel against governments they perceive as lackeys of foreign power. In the twentieth century, many of these rebels were men and women inspired by American history, American principles, and the rhetoric of American democracy. They were critical of the United States, however, and wished to reduce or eliminate the power it wielded over their countries. Their defiance made them anathema to American leaders, who crushed them time after time. ~ Stephen Kinzer

The basic design intention guiding Mercedes in the last ten years seems to be that its cars should offer psychic blow jobs to the affluent. ~ Matthew B. Crawford

A mother has the best of all smiles; she is a wonderful friend, lover and adviser. ~ Jaachynma N.E. Agu

However keen you may be to begin your study, before you venture on to the mat and attempt any of the basic techniques it is necessary to know something of the principles that govern aikido, for unless you do understand a little about posture, movement, balance, gentleness and courtesy, you will not be a satisfactory pupil.

(Page 18). ~ Sadami Yamada

I have failed to be an appropriate model for Christian conduct many times. At significant points, when I should have led by example, I failed to embody the very principles I publicly affirm. I have been intolerant, greedy, slothful, and even dishonest. Were someone to say I was an example for how others should live, I would be flattered but would know their assessment was inaccurate. To say Jesus is 'only an example,' as if that were a small thing, underestimates not only the profound difficulty of serving such a role, but also discounts its rarity. ~ Philip Gulley

I have very set and consistent principles, but I am flexible on tactics. I like to get the job done. ~ Madeleine Albright

The church must be involved in all the seven spheres of life extending the virtues and principles of the kingdom of God ~ Sunday Adelaja

It was here I learnt that corporate principles and military principles are basically the same. Insulation. Illusion. Hype. Activity. ~ Tarun J. Tejpal

Freemasonry is an order whose leading star is philanthropy and whose principles inculcate an unceasing devotion to the cause of virtue and morality. ~ George Washington

The first principle of child-rearing is to choose a good mother. ~ Christian Morgenstern

This political disorder found expression in Machiavelli Prince. In the absence of any guiding principle, politics becomes a naked struggle for power; The Prince gives shrewd advice as to how to play this game successfully. What had happened in the great age of Greece happened again in Renaissance Italy: traditional moral restraints disappeared, because they were seen to be associated with superstition; the liberation from fetters made individuals energetic and creative, producing a rare florescence of genius; but the anarchy and treachery which inevitably resulted from the decay of morals made Italians collectively impotent, and they fell, like the Greeks, under the domination of nations less civilized than themselves but not so destitute of social cohesion. ~ Bertrand Russell

"Playing" the resources of characterology for the sake of clarification and insight into the structures of actual existence is many times more daunting than playing a piano; it requires the thinking of chords of thoughts, not just isolated simplisms or abstracta; it demands the shaping or encompassing of morphological modes of intelligence that can comprehend gestalten, syndromes, historical and civilizational patterns in which it is not the particulars but their interactive significance (as an ensemble of actualities or principles) that is vital. ~ Kenny Smith

Something like this will test you like nothing else," Mac said. "You're going to find out who you are, Harry. You're going to find out which principles you'll stand by to your death
and which lines you'll cross." He took my empty glass away and said, "You're heading into the badlands. It'll be easy to get lost. ~ Jim Butcher

In the space between stimulus (what happens) and how we respond, lies our freedom to choose. Ultimately, this power to choose is what defines us as human beings. We may have limited choices but we can always choose. We can choose our thoughts, emotions, moods, our words, our actions; we can choose our values and live by principles. It is the choice of acting or being acted upon. ~ Stephen R. Covey

Marquise de Merteuil: I've distilled every thing to one single principle: win or die. ~ Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

During my study of happiness, I noticed something that surprised me: I often learn more from one person's highly idiosyncratic experiences than I do from sources that detail universal principles or cite up-to-date studies. ~ Gretchen Rubin

Theistic absolutism and realism are the basic ontological principles of Kashmir Shaivism. In this philosophy everything that exists is real, and yet is spiritual as well, because everything is the manifestation of an absolute reality, described as pure, eternal, and infinite Consciousness. According to the ancient authors of this philosophy, the essential features of Consciousness are Its infinite, divine, and joyful vitality, and the inclination to manifest Its powers of creation, preservation, dissolution, obscuration, and revelation. The vibrant, creative quality is the divine essence of God. Consciousness is also described as luminous. It illuminates Itself and is always aware of Itself and everything within It.

The ancient masters refer in various ways to this One creative force out of which everything emerges. It is known most commonly as the Ultimate, Absolute Reality, Consciousness, Paramasiva, and God. Yet, according to Kashmir Shaivism, Paramasiva cannot be fully described or clearly thought over because, being infinite in nature, He cannot be confined to any thinking or speaking ability. No words can fully describe Him, no mind can correctly think about Him, and no understanding can perfectly understand Him. This is His absoluteness, and Kashmir Shaivism considers this absoluteness to be one of His key attributes. Because the Absolute cannot be fathomed with the intellect or through ordinary logical reasoning and philosophical speculation, the ancient ma ~ Balajinnatha Pandita