Quotes About Compromise

Those are things people say, Tyler. Talking about multilateralism and diplomacy is like saying 'I love you'—it serves to facilitate the fucking.

If you run away or fight back, in the long run you cannot win. If you surrender, you will almost always emerge victorious.

Everything in life conspires to push you into the center, and not just politically. The center is the realm of compromise. Getting along with other people is an important skill to have, but it comes with a danger: by always seeking the path of least resistance, the path of conciliation, you forget who you are, and you sink into the center with everyone else. Instead see yourself as a fighter, an outsider surrounded by enemies. Constant battle will keep you strong and alert.

The Seesaw. Up and down and up and down go the arguers, getting nowhere fast. Get off the seesaw and show them your meaning without kicking or pushing. Leave them at the top and let gravity bring them gently to the ground.

Appeasement is simply an attempt to redress those same wrongs.

Some said Delana was sucessful as a mediator because both sides would agree just to make her stop staring at them.

In any trade, you needed to make the other fellow think he was getting something extra

a victory of diplomacy did not come when everyone got what they wanted—that made everyone assume they'd gotten the better of her, which encouraged more extravagant demands. The trick is not to satisfy everyone, but to leave everyone feeling they reached the best possible result. They must be satisfied enough to do as you wish, yet dissatisfied enough to know that you bested them.

what you gain on the swings, you lose on the roundabouts.

What is the best method of appeasing an offended party? Would it not be to give some ground to them, acknowledge what they have done right?

There's always the question of price, isn't there? Some prices I might not want to pay.

You cannot please everyone

You cannot soothe everyone.

Excellence is born of preparation, dedication, focus, and tenacity; compromise on any of these and you become average.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall take flack from both sides.- Unofficial UN Motto

As in the spring with "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," I felt that agreements with the Obama White House were good for only as long as they were politically convenient.

Ich bin Mitglied einer ministeriellen Konferenz. Bei einer Konferenz bringt jeder vor, was er haben möchte und für das Richtige hält, und zum Schluß ergibt sich etwas daraus, das keiner ganz gewollt hat: eben das Ergebnis.

Gilbert, having tried to please both sides, succeeded, as is usual and eminently right, in pleasing neither.

one sin demands another to cover it.

If he didn't like the way she did things, he was free to do them different—but he never did them different. He just fussed at her.

When his second wife died and he was free to propose, he did one day, on a picnic to the place they called her orchard, and she refused instantly, without losing a trace of merriment. Why not? he asked. I'm used to my own ways, she said. You might try to make me do something I wouldn't want to do. Don't I indulge your every whim? he asked. Yes, but that's because you haven't got me, Clara said. I bet you'd change fast if I ever let you get the upper hand. p340

People don't break up because someone's family is a little . . . messy. If that were the case, no one would ever get married.

What I'm trying to say is that it will be okay between you and Nate. Because you both want that. Because you both want that more than anything. It sounds simple, but I'm learning that the problems start when you want different things

Dan: Finn and Bobby are fighting over the wrong thing. But at least they're fighting. Georgia: And how is that good? Dan: Because that's the only way to get somewhere better. If you fight, you work it out. If you don't fight, you move into your own corners, and nothing gets decided there