Quotes about Compromise

Values and verdicts never bother me half as much as people trying to weasel their way around them, or people compromising their reason to pander to their own prejudices and preconceptions, which they are so rarely competent to look in the face.

Compromise is the essence of diplomacy; and diplomacy is the cornerstone of love.

Some people never learn the art of compromise.  Everything is either black or white.  They do no recognize, or will not concede, that the equally important color gray is a mixture of black and white.

“Unless both sides win, no agreement can be permanent.”

What he would say he cannot say to this woman whose openness is like a wound, whose youth is not mortal yet. He cannot alter what he loves most in her, her lack of compromise, where the romance of the poems she loves still sits with ease in the real world.

Diversity and independence are important because the best collective decisions are the product of disagreement and contest, not consensus or compromise.

Moderation? It's mediocrity, fear, and confusion in disguise. It's the devil's dilemma. It's neither doing nor not doing. It's the wobbling compromise that makes no one happy. Moderation is for the bland, the apologetic, for the fence-sitters of the world afraid to take a stand. It's for those afraid to laugh or cry, for those afraid to live or die. Moderation...is lukewarm tea, the devil's own brew.

People very rarely think in groups; they talk together, they exchange information, they adjudicate, they make compromises. But they do not think; they do not create.

THE Hunter and the Bear . . . The Sory of a Perfect Compromise The hunter sighted his quarry, and raised his rifle to fire. The bear, raising a paw, said, "Now just a minute friend; can't we talk this over like two rational, intelligent, progressive beings?" The hunter lowered his gun, and scratching his head replied, "What's to talk over?" "Well", said the bear, "for example, what do you want to shoot me for?" "That's very simple. I want a bearskin coat". "And I," said the bear, "merely want a good breakfast. Let's sit down together, I'm sure we can reach a common point of view that will satisfy us both". So they sat down together to work out an agreement. After a time the bear got up all alone. They had reached a compromise. The bear had his breakfast; the hunter had on his fur coat. You know where the hunter was. He was eaten alive by his compromise position. You will be eaten alive also, if you sacrifice your principles for any reason. THE END DOES NOT JUSTIFY THE MEANS.

He never wants anything but what's right and fair; only when you come to settle what's right and fair, it's everything that he wants and nothing that you want. And that's his idea of a compromise.

Franklin may . . . be considered one of the founding fathers of American democracy, since no democratic government can last long without conciliation and compromise.

Peace is a two way road of conflict and compromise.

The way you activate the seeds of your creation is by making choices about the results you want to create. When you make a choice, you mobilize vast human energies and resources which otherwise go untapped. All too often people fail to focus their choices upon results and therefore their choices are ineffective. If you limit your choices only to what seems possible of reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.

Marriage requires the giving and keeping of confidences, the sharing of thoughts and feelings, respect and understanding always, marriage requires humility - the humility to repent, the humility to forgive. Marriage requires flexibility (to give and take) and firmness: not to compromise principles. And a wise and moderate sense of humor. Both need to be pulling together in the same direction.

If you do it first class and you don't compromise values, and you don't compromise quality, and you don't compromise service, and you don't compromise cleanliness, then everybody else who is the competitor has got to play catch-up.

Some men are born to own, and can animate all their possessions. Others cannot: their owning is not graceful; seems to be a compromise of their character: they seem to steal their own dividends.

Individualism, as a definition of holding to personal ideals, is classed as obstinacy and anti-social. Inevitably we run point blank into the evils of compromise. When compromise enters our moral fibre, it spreads like a cancerous growth. We think we plan adequate safeguards around areas in which we contemplate yielding our standards, but once we lower the fence and break our strong will to do right, come what may, we expose ourselves to forces that spread beyond control. Compromise always starts on some rather insignificant principle. The dangers of yielding seem negligible and we usually risk those things first where observation and detection by others is difficult. We thus seek to avoid censure and discipline. In a short time we find ourselves trading our principles for false values and doing it in the black market of human relationships. . . .

How can we be trusted with big things if we're not trustworthy with things that are small? Don't allow your finer instincts to become a casualty of the little everyday crimes of ethical compromise.

Compromise, if not the spice of life, is its solidity. It is what makes nations great and marriages happy.

Compromise is simply changing the question to fit the answer.

Broadly speaking, I learned to recognize sin as the refusal to live up to the enlightenment we possess: to know the right order of values and deliberately to choose the lower ones: to know that, however much these values may differ with different people at different stages of spiritual growth, for one's self there must be no compromise with that which one knows to be the lower value.

Paul, using the examples of differing opinions about food and days among the believers in Rome, teaches that Christians should not despise or judge others. He does not advise them to find a happy medium between the contending opinions or to average the two extremes in a compromise. On the contrary, he admonished them that "every one be fully convinced in his own mind" (Rom. 14:5), because God is able to make both stand, as both of them are serving the Lord in obedience to their individual convictions of His will. . . . Each of us has to find personally what is the will of God for his own life, and let all others meet their responsibility to do the same. . . . For God, by giving different commands to many, and putting them together according to His plan, shall accomplish ultimately His complete will.

"The Church of England," I said, seeing that Mr. Inglesant paused, "is no doubt a compromise."

You may either win your peace or buy it: win it, by resistance to evil; buy it, by compromise with evil.

In a nourishing relationship, compromise is a foregone conclusion.

Don't compromise yourself. You're all you've got.

They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin.

Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof; it is a temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship.

Recently a large group of 'problem' children were given the assignment of writing essays on the difficulties they had with their parents. The papers they turned in were misspelled but lively, listing a number of rather predicable faults - gushing, nagging, refusing affection, and so on. But oddly enough the quality most children felt their parents lacked was truthfulness. None of us, of course, likes to think of himself as a liar. In important things we make it a point to be scrupulously honest. But if we examine our daily lives closely we may find dozens of examples of small compromises, trivial evasions. These seemingly unimportant deceits should be guarded against, since they can all too easily become a part of the fabric of our existence, influencing our relationships with others. An unflagging desire for truth in every aspect of our behavior does much to provide that sense of security for which all people yearn.

If we will be true and faithful to our principles, committed to a life of honesty and integrity, then no king or contest or fiery furnace will be able to compromise us. For the success of the kingdom of God on earth, may we stand as witnesses for Him "at all times and in all things, and in all places that we may be in, even until death."