# Loyalty to Principles Must Outgrow Loyalty to Mistakes by Bryant McGill > “A civilization becomes stronger when loyalty to its principles becomes greater than loyalty to its mistakes.” > **— Bryant McGill**, *Authorship of the West, September 2026* ## Sources and Context - **Author-supplied exact original:** “A civilization becomes stronger when loyalty to its principles becomes greater than loyalty to its mistakes.” — supplied directly by Bryant McGill in his manuscript for [[articles/war with empire/Authorship of the West|Authorship of the West]] (September 22, 2026). - **Source article:** [[articles/war with empire/Authorship of the West|Authorship of the West]] — the sentence appears in the article's reading of Frederick Douglass (1852), Abraham Lincoln (1863) and Martin Luther King Jr. (1963), each of whom turned the nation's founding principles against its practice. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/War With Empire|War With Empire]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]] - **Article:** [[articles/war with empire/Authorship of the West|Authorship of the West]] - **Article:** [[articles/How Europe's Refuse Built the Apex Civilization Called America|How Europe's Refuse Built the Apex Civilization Called America]] - **Article:** [[articles/war with empire/The Monroe Doctrine, the British Substrate, and the Unfinished Decolonization of the Americas|The Monroe Doctrine, the British Substrate, and the Unfinished Decolonization of the Americas]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Authorship of the West|Authorship of the West]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Charter Civilization|Charter Civilization]] - [[wiki/Recursive Self-Correction|Recursive Self-Correction]] - [[wiki/Historical Responsibility|Historical Responsibility]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “A civilization becomes stronger when loyalty to its principles becomes greater than loyalty to its mistakes.” — Bryant McGill, Authorship of the West, September 2026 https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-bryant-mcgill-principles-over-mistakes ```