Quotes About Compromise

I considered this a great injustice to me as I was an equal partner and Gardner brought in only his share of the capital, but I thought it best to submit.

Rawlins let loose a stemwinder of a speech that lasted forty-five minutes. His voice throbbing with emotion, he thundered, "I have been a Democrat all my life; but this is no longer a question of politics. It is simply country or no country. I have favored every honorable compromise; but the day for compromise is passed.

A laconic man, he liked to canvass everyone's opinion before expressing his own and then often crafted a compromise to maintain cohesion.

Many southerners feared that the New Englanders were a rash, obstinate people, prone to extremism, and worried that an army led by a New England general might someday turn despotic and conquer the South. The appointment of George Washington would soothe such fears and form a perfect political compromise between North and South.

Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.

I'd learned a few lessons about negotiating: You're unlikely to ever get all you want; you'll probably get more of what you want if you don't issue ultimatums and leave your adversary room to maneuver; you shouldn't back your adversary into a corner, embarrass him, or humiliate him; and sometimes the easiest way to get some things done is for the top people to do them alone and in private.

We all want our own way; some of us have the skills to get our own way adaptively, and some of us don't.

If you don't get what you want, it's a sign either that you did not seriously want it, or that you tried to bargain over the price.

We never pay anyone Dane-geld, no matter how trifling the cost. For the end of that game is oppression and shame and the nation that plays it is lost!

If you want something and don' get it, there are only two reasons. You either really didn't want it, or you tried to bargain over the price

If you haven't the money to buy the quality you want, go without, don't compromise.

Sandra nodded. "Agreed. A…oh, God, let's not call it a United Nations, shall we? That would doom things from the start.

What happens when you win? When your enemies are at your mercy: how will you act then? Compromise is the temptation of the weak; this is the test for the strong.

Men on the road together have three choices. They separate, they kill one another, or they work things out.

What shuts you up is, I think, the sight you've had of perfection: why speak if you can't manage perfect thoughts, perfect sentences? It feels like a betrayal of what you've been through. But it fades; you accept that certain compromises, closures, are required if you're to continue.

Unfortunately life has a way of sidetracking one's greatest ambitions. Painters, would-be artists, end up whitewashing walls. Sculptors are forced to design toilets. Writers become critics or publicists. Archaeologists, like myself, can become gravediggers.

How does newness come into the world? How is it born? Of what fusions, translations, conjoining is it made? How does it survive, extreme and dangerous as it is? What compromises, what deals, what betrayals of its secret nature must it make to stave off the wrecking crew, the exterminating angel, the guillotine? Is birth always a fall? Do angels have wings? Can men fly?

At the beginning of all love there is a private treaty each of the lovers makes with himself or herself, an agreement to set aside what is wrong with the other for the sake of what is right.

How does newness come into the world? How is it born? Of what fusions, translations, conjoinings is it made? How does it survive, extreme and dangerous as it is? What compromises, what deals, what betrayals of its secret nature must it make to stave off the wrecking crew, the exterminating angel, the guillotine? Is birth always a fall? Do angels have wings? Can men fly?

As human being, we live in a perpetual conversation between conversation and violence; what apart from fundamental willingness to be reasonable, can guarantee that we will keep talking to one another?

You do have to do business with and to try to influence people you don't agree with, or find disagreeable, so it's important to stress that balance.

The secret to a happy marriage? Do whatever your wife tells you. 'Yes, dear.' And breathe.

Doing the right thing doesn't always bring success. But compromising ethics almost always leads to failure.

We hurt ourselves not by what we ask for, but what we settle for.