Moliere Quotes

Virtue knows that it is impossible to get on without compromise, and tunes herself, as it were, a trifle sharp to allow for an inevitable fall in playing.

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

One clings to principles for only as long as they are not put to the test. When that happens one throws them away as the peasant does his slippers.

I don't know how you make a living without a few personal compromises.

Life's not black-and-white. Sometimes the ends justifies the means.

Often the best way to overcome desire is to satisfy it.

That’s the trick in any negotiation. Getting to yes means getting the other party satisfied that its interest are being met sufficiently…. You both got to get something out of it that your prepared to fight for at home.

On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

Not proud. But I watched 'The Bachelor' only once, and I really felt, after that experience, that I could never do it again. I felt it was so morally compromising, as a woman.

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.

If you've ever done something you love and go do something you like, it's like chewing on sawdust.

Very rarely do people make big compromises with their integrity. Almost every compromise is a small one that is easily justified. The downhill slide is usually a result of many little compromises.

If I had a humble spirit in my service who, when I asked for a glass of water, brought me the world's costliest wines blended in a chalice, I should dismiss him, in order to teach him that my pleasure consists, not in what I enjoy, but in having my own way.

If you're going to lick the icing off somebody else's cake you won't be nourished and it won't do you any good,--or you might find the cake had caraway seeds and you hate them.

Those who won't accept evil never get anything good.

In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.

An unrestricted satisfaction of every need presents itself as the most enticing method of conducting one's life, but it means putting enjoyment before caution, and soon brings its own punishment.

Yet in a society of conflicting interests the only democratic way in which matters can be improved is through politics, and politics means the compromising of extremes in order to achieve that notorious half loaf which the passionate and the outraged never find sufficient.

The pleasure of gratifying whim is very great. It is known only by those who are whimsical.

I work really hard - that doesn't mean I deserve anything, but it's really cool to see the positive reaction people give to something you worked so hard on. It's one of the best feelings.

You can have your cake and eat it. But my God, it will go rotten inside you.

Truth is, I've always been selling out. The difference is that in the past, I looked like I had integrity because there were no buyers.

He who denies himself much in great matters will readily indulge himself in small things.

You can't always get what you want.

One’s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s personal interest in the issue.