If someone is high-minded, they hold themselves — and often other people — to very high moral standards. They care about what is right, not just what is easy or what pays. A high-minded speech is about justice, duty, or doing good, not about winning. The word can be warm, but it can also be a little cool. Sometimes the speaker means “they really try to be good.” Sometimes they mean “they talk as if they are better than the rest of us” — noble on the surface, a bit above the messy real world. You hear it in writing and in serious talk more than in the playground. Though actually, in a newspaper it can be a polite way to say “too noble to be of any use.” It is not the same as high-handed, though the two look alike: high-minded is about morals; high-handed is about power. It is also not a word for “clever.” A person can be high-minded and still get the facts wrong.