Howard Baker Quotes

If you can’t learn to compromise an issue without compromising yourself then you better not be a legislator and you better not marry.

The secret of America is compromise. Compromise is a sign of weakness in any other country. In America it is a great strength.

You don't compromise principles, but you harmonize tactics to preserve unity.

He [Theodore Roosevelt] acted upon the maxim that half a loaf is better than no bread. I believe that half a loaf is fatal whenever it is accepted at the sacrifice of the basic principle sought to be attained.... A half-way measure never fairly tests the principle and many utterly discredit it.

There is never just one way in politics.

I write a world where everyone is partly right.

If the shoe doesn't fit, must we change the foot?

If you study both 'Gilligan' and 'Brady,' you will see they are based on a similar philosophy: that it's possible for different kinds of people to learn to live together, either in a family or stuck on an island with no escape.

It takes all kinds to make the world go 'round. If everyone was straight-laced and uptight, it would sure be a drag. We need a little tug of war in society.

If you never budge, don't expect a push.

Our right to disagree is precious but fragile. The best way to protect and preserve it is to let the other side speak without demonizing them or destroying their right to be heard. Such civil exchanges are the heart beat of democracy - essential to keeping it alive.

Let's not demonize people who don't happen to agree with us.

We should accept diversity and pluralism and learn to live in them, and learn how to grow in them, without losing our identity and compromising ourselves

I am willing ... when I cannot get all I wish, to take what I can get.

A result of accommodation and compromise cannot be supposed perfectly to coincide with any one’s idea of perfection.

We must learn that we can disagree with each other without becoming deadly enemies.

You can't be rigid in this business [politics].

There’s no reason to be upset. This was a display of pluralism. We Mexicans need to get used to new times.

We will have differences. Even in our own country we do not see everything alike. If we did, we would all want the same wife—and that would be a problem, wouldn't it!

Pluralism ... implies disagreement and dissension within the community.

Tolerance is as necessary in politics as it is in religion.

The greatest respect you can give your political adversaries is to give them your undivided attention. If you want them to hear you, you have to be willing to hear them.

Nothing is more dangerous in practice, than an obstinate, unbending adherence to a system.

The condition of our survival in any but the meagerest existence is our willingness to accommodate ourselves to the conflicting interests of others, to learn to live in a social world.

Let us give our Republic not the best possible laws but the best which they will bear.