Good Precept Quotes & Sayings

I freely admit that I have many times adopted Jim Oakley's precept of a "bloody good gallop," often with spectacular results. To this day I frequently learn things from farmers, but that was one time when I learned from a postman. — James Herriot

Sometimes it's good to start over — R.J. Palacio

Man and his deed are two distinct things. Whereas a good deed should call forth approbation and a wicked deed disapprobation, the doer of the deed, whether good or wicked, always deserves respect or pity as the case may be. "Hate the sin and not the sinner" is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practiced, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world. — Mahatma Gandhi

Where is there virtue in this world that is of any practical good whose vital force is not to be found in example rather than in precept? — Edward Hooker Dewey

Seva, love and sacrifice are the basic prerequisites for human development. If you agree with this precept, nurture good will towards all and help people to the best of your ability without expecting anything in return. Don't think, 'I will render service only when the organizers agree with me and not otherwise.' Dear brother! In that case, you will not be able to serve. You will only nurture your ego by making others agree with you. — Asaram

JULIAN ALBANS'S PRECEPT Sometimes it's good to start over. - Julian Albans — R.J. Palacio

By the way, I love your precept. I agree, sometimes it's good to start over. A fresh start gives us the chance to reflect on the past, weigh the things we've done, and apply what we've learned from those things to the future. If we don't examine the past, we don't learn from it. — R.J. Palacio

Literature deals with morality but does not necessarily, does not, qua literature, help you to be more moral, either by precept or example. It makes you more aware. Which is to say that it makes you more human by making life more, not less, difficult. When you become more aware, the area of moral choice is widened. You can be a better man; you can also be a worse. Literature will not determine which. It is the equivalent of neither grace nor good works. — Eric Bentley

It was perhaps, the devil's oldest precept, that sin could always be trusted to reveal what was most human in a person as often for good as for ill. — Joe Hill

For the company of the great is good company as Shakespeare understood it, as Plutarch understood it. The past remains the source from which example and precept can still be drawn. — C.V. Wedgwood

A good example is far better than a good precept. — Dwight L. Moody

All attempts at gaining literary polish must begin with judicious reading, and the learner must never cease to hold this phase uppermost. In many cases, the usage of good authors will be found a more effective guide than any amount of precept. — H.P. Lovecraft

In regard to religion, mutual toleration in the different professions thereof is what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever practiced, and both by precept and example inculcated on mankind. — Samuel Adams

I forget who it was that recommended men for their soul's good to do each day two things they disliked: it was a wise man, and it is a precept that I have followed scrupulously; for every day I have got up and I have gone to bed. — W. Somerset Maugham

All the problems in this world, he had told me, stem from the precept that we ought not to care about one another just because we are strangers.

Why should we not care about what happens to strangers? Could you imagine the sort of world we might inhabit if we honestly and genuinely wanted to see one another living good, safe lives? Can you even think what it might look like if we all cared about strangers as much as we cared about loved ones, so that the line between the two faded over time, and the precept - the crippling precept - disappeared altogether? — Rose Christo

Once for all, then, a short precept is given thee: Love, and do what thou wilt: whether thou hold thy peace, through love hold thy peace; whether thou cry out, through love cry out; whether thou correct, through love correct; whether thou spare, through love do thou spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good. — Augustine Of Hippo

A bad composition carries its own punishment - contempt and ridicule; a good one excites envy and entails upon its author a thousand mortifications; he finds himself assailed by partial and ill-humored criticism; one man finds fault with the plan, another with the style, a third with the precept which strives to inculcate; and they who cannot succeed in finding fault with the book, employ themselves in stigmatizing its author: they maliciously rake out from obscurity every little circumstance which may throw ridicule upon his private character or conduct and aim at wounding the man since they cannot hurt the writer. — Matthew Gregory Lewis

Thinking has, many a time, made me sad, darling; but doing never did in all my life ... My precept is, do something, my sister, do good if you can; but at any rate, do something. — Elizabeth Gaskell

A great estate is a great disadvantage to those who do not know how to use it, for nothing is more common than to see wealthy persons live scandalously and miserably; riches do them no service in order to virtue and happiness; therefore 'tis precept and principle, not an estate, that makes a man good for something. — Marcus Aurelius

When we pray for any virtue, we should cultivate the virtue as well as pray for it; the form of your prayer should be the rule of your life; every petition to God is a precept to man. Look not, therefore, upon your prayers as a method of good and salvation only, but as a perpetual monition of duty. By what we require of God we see what he requires of us. — Jeremy Taylor

The road to learning by precept is long, but by example short and effective. — Seneca The Elder

Therefore, a prudent ruler ought not to keep faith when by so doing it would be against his interest, and when the reasons which made him bind himself no longer exist. If men were all good, this precept would not be a good one; but as they are bad, and would not observe their faith with you, so you are not bound to keep faith with them. — Niccolo Machiavelli

This laudable quality is commonly known by the name of Manners and Good-breeding, and consists in a Fashionable Habit, acquir'd by Precept and Example, of flattering the Pride and Selfishness of others, and concealing our own with Judgment and Dexterity. — Bernard De Mandeville

Why should I choose to divide my ethics into four rather than six? Why should I define virtue as four, or two, or one? Why as desist and resist rather than 'follow nature' or 'discharge your private business without injustice', like Plato, or anything else?
'But,' you will say, 'there everything is summed up in a word. - 'Yes, but that is no good unless you explain it.' And when you come to explain it, as soon as you open up this precept which contains all the others, out they all come in the original confusion that you wanted to avoid. Thus when they are all enclosed in one they are concealed and useless, as if they were in a box, and they only come to light in their natural confusion. Nature has laid them down, without enclosing one inside another. — Blaise Pascal