John Bartlet Brebner Quotes

What good would politics be, if it didn’t give everyone the opportunity to make moral compromises?

When you are President you have to get something done, and that often means compromise.

Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable, the art of the next best.

The art of government is the art of negotiating and compromise.

Every statesman must attempt to reconcile what is considered just with what is considered possible.

We are hugely and sometimes willfully ignorant about the arts of politics and governing, especially about the utter necessity of compromise.

When a rising power confronts a ruling power, bad things usually happen.... This is what happens when an extablished entity faces an upstart.... To avoid a disasterous clash like war, both parties have to make an adjustment, but the ruling power has to make more painful adjustments.

Afghans long ago resigned themselves to this sort of thing. Compromises must be made. Deals with the devil are better than ceaseless butchery. In the exigencies of post-conflict bygones, against the threat of collapse into more terrible bloodletting, the ugliness of realpolitik is the lesser evil.

Half of this business is politics. As real estate developers, it's our job to go in there and get beat up.

Politics and war are remarkably similar situations.

It's a necessary quality of a diplomat or a politician that he will compromise. Uncompromising politicians or diplomats get you into the most terrible trouble.

People versed in politics need not be told that the devil is in the detail, and tough solutions implying the use of force cannot produce a lasting long-term settlement.

We have to find compromises. That's the way it is in Norway.

We lost the American colonies because we lacked the statesmanship to know the right time and the manner of yielding what is impossible to keep.

War has rules, mud wrestling has rules - politics has no rules.

I've been repeating ad nauseam that we in Burma, we are weak with regard to the culture of negotiated compromises, that we have to develop the ability to achieve such compromises.

Politics are about preserving relationships at the end of the day, and it has nothing to do with the greater good for humanity. It's just all about business.

Diplomacy is letting someone else have your way.

Although we are very strong, we are pursuing a very calculating and moderate policy. We prefer a political solution and are managing the situation accordingly.

Americans tend to go for it all. In international politics you can’t have it all. You have to compromise.

Bipartisanship is like marriage. It takes two to make it work. It only takes one to make it a failure. The President has been playing politics with foreign policy.

The art of politics is to design a solution that feels painless to all.

The dominant color of politics is gray; difficult choices and compromise are required at almost every step of the journey toward a major new program.

All legislation of any consequence is a compromise. You have to recognize that.

It’s going to take some give and take from the House Judiciary Chairman who doesn’t like to give and only likes to take.