Benjamin N. Cardozo Quotes

You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.

More often there's a compromise between ethics and expediency.

Theoretical principals must sometimes give way for the sake of practical advantages.

There is no decision that we can make that doesn't come with some sort of balance or sacrifice.

Sometimes you do have to accept your second or third choice in order to avoid an outcome you consider to be even worse.

Instead of doing the best thing, we sometimes have to settle for the rightest thing.

Necessity dispenseth with decorum.

Saying 'yes' to one thing means saying 'no' to another. That's why decisions can be hard sometimes.

The right must ... yield to the expedient.

You have to make choices always. It's about the omission of something for the sake of another.

You can't put as much into one thing as you want, and I felt like I was shortchanging football a little bit by giving school so much time.

Sometimes you have to park things you're not happy with, because there are more important things to be done.

Economic policy is like business - it's all about compromise.

In avoiding one evil we fall into another, if we use not discretion.

In life one cannot eat his cake and have it, too; he must make his choice and then do the best he can to be content to go the way his judgment leads.

A rational man acting in the real world may be defined as one who decides where he will strike a balance between what he desires and what can be done.

You either get free stuff or you get freedom. You cannot have both and you need to make a choice.

To renounce an honor for an advantage. To renounce an advantage for a greater advantage.

I don't like to use the word sacrifice.

You cannot eat your cake and have it.

The gods never let us love and be wise at the same time.

Compromise is like the middle of the road; always safer to walk on than the edges.

You must not try to be too pure, you must fly closer to the sea.

Finding one important thing in your life doesn’t mean you have to give up all the other important things.

You cannot have a cake and eat it too. Either you eat it, or you have it.