Like the British Constitution, she owes her success in practice to her inconsistencies in principle.
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Personally, I'm in favor of democracy, which means that the central institutions of society have to be under popular control. Now, under capitalism, we can't have democracy by definition. Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control. Thus, a corporation or an industry is, if we were to think of it in political terms, fascist that is, it has tight control at the top and strict obedience has to be establishedat every level--there's little bargaining, a little give and take,but the line of authority is perfectly straightforward. Just as I'm opposed to political fascism, I'm opposed to economic fascism. I think that until the major institutions of society are under the popular control of participants and communities, it's pointless to talk about democracy.
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Apparently the Torah was in principle opposed to the eating of meat. When Noah and his descendants were permitted to eat meat this was a concession conditional on the prohibition of the blood. This prohibition implied respect for the principle of life (‘for the blood is the life’) and an allusion to the fact that in reality all meat should have been prohibited. This partial prohibition was designed to call to mind the previously total one.
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Semiotics is concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign. A sign is everything which can be taken as significantly substituting for something else. This something else does not necessarily have to exist or to actually be somewhere at the moment in which a sign stands in for it. Thus semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie. If something cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth; it cannot in fact be used 'to tell' at all. I think that the definition of a 'theory of the lie' should be taken as a pretty comprehensive program for a general semiotics.
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The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.
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How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing. It seems still more impossible that a quarrel which has already been settled in principle should be the subject of war.
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Universal suffrage is sound in principle. The radical element is right.
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When you say that you agree to a thing in principle you mean that you have not the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice.
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America is much more than a geographical fact. It is a political and moral fact - the first community in which men set out in principle to institutionalize freedom, responsible government, and human equality
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In principle, ownership of handwritten documents lies with the author. A large number of my manuscripts have been leaked and are now missing. These are stolen items of sorts, because they were taken without permission and sold for financial gain.
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Of course we can keep this going, in principle, forever. In practice we will keel over from exhaustion, boredom, or death.
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Everybody's for democracy in principle. It's only in practice that the thing gives rise to stiff objections.
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When a man says he approves of something in principle, it means he hasn't the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice.
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When a man says he approves of something in principle, it means he hasn’t the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice.
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I don't believe in principle, but I do in interest.
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A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.
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I am skeptical in principle, gullible in practice.
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When a man says he approves of something in principle, it means he hasn't the slightest intention of putting it into practice.
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I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.
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A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue, but moderation in principle is always a vice.
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