Jan Peter Balkenende Quotes

This path that we are now starting will be long, and we must follow it to remind ourselves of the great principles that, in our understanding, should always inspire us.

When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier.

Authentic values are those by which a life can be lived, which can form a people that produces great deeds and thoughts.

What you believe, what you value, how you live, matters.

There is a fundamental question we all have to face. How are we to live our lives; by what principles and moral values will we be guided and inspired?

Principles are like seeds; they are little things which do much good, if the mind that receives them has the right attitudes.

The great book for you is the book that has the most to say to you at the moment when you are reading. I do not mean the book that is most instructive, but the book that feeds your spirit. And that depends on your age, your experience, your psychological and spiritual need.

Everybody has values. Now, you know it may be formed in a secular setting, it may be formed in an intellectual setting, but everybody comes forward with values.

Man tells his aspiration in his God; but in his demon he shows his depth of experience.

It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.

Don't trust somebody that don't have a troubled period.

A lot of people are simply interested in exploring their own spirituality, their own values, who they are, whether they're happy where they are.

Know the difference between principles based on right or wrong vs. principles based on personal gain, and consider the basis of your own principles.

I'm not someone who's sort of still trying to figure out what I believe in.

Life is essentially a question of values.

In everything I do, whether in business, philanthropy or my personal life, I am guided by my inner truth, my values.

The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life.

For me, teaching helps to reaffirm the right principles and values of acting. It helps me focus on the good stuff that can be easy to lose sight of because the business is so result-oriented.

I think I can be spiritual, and I can feel that I want to live well, I want to do things that I'm proud of, and I think that's important. Now, do I need a church to tell me that? Actually, no, I don't.

Success is always temporary. When all is said and one, the only thing you'll have left is your character.

But rarely have I made choices that made me feel I was really compromising what I believe.

Values are not trendy items that are casually traded in.

Champions invariably have fervent philosophical beliefs. Philosophy, in its simplest terms, means 'the love of wisdom.'

I had lost a clear sense of the vision and values instilled in me as a child and was no longer driven by any mission or passion. I made the difficult decision to pull back from the noise of my life and reinvent the way I was living and leading.

I'll never go against my morals.