Hubert Humphrey Quotes

If I believe in something, I will fight for it with all I have. But I do not demand all or nothing. I would rather get something than nothing. Professional liberals want the fiery debate. They glory in defeat. The hardest job for a politician today is to have the courage to be a moderate. It's easy to take an extreme position.

That is what all of us must learn to do in the United States; to limit objectives, to get ourselves away from the absolute, to find out what is within our powers.

You can cooperate and not compromise your core values. But I'm a realist with the philosophy that sometimes you've got to take bites out of the apple instead of the whole apple.

I shall argue that strong men, conversely, know when to compromise and that all principles can be compromised to serve a greater principle.

I'm just not a purist. You set goals and you have to work with everyone to figure out how to get what you can.

I'm progressive, and I'm practical.

People ask me if I'm liberal or conservative. I say neither - I'm pragmatic.

I'd describe myself as a pragmatist tinged with idealism.

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

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.

We have to learn how to work within the limits that are possible, not what is desirable.

I'm a pragmatist.

You win any which way you can. You do what you have to do to get by. That's the way it works in any job.

I realize I'm an ambitious guy, but I just try to take things as they come, you know, for the most part.

It is best to live however one can be.

Sometimes a little compromise isn't a bad thing. You don't need to be precious about it.

When times are tough, constant conflict may be good politics but in the real world, cooperation works better. After all, nobody's right all the time, and a broken clock is right twice a day.

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

The right must ... yield to the expedient.

No society ... can fail in time to explode if it is deprived of the arts of compromise .... No good society can be unprincipled and no viable society can be principle-ridden.

I'm a compromiser and a maneuverer. I try to get something. That's the way our system works.

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

I could sit down and talk with the devil if necessary.

I learned over time that you do not go for the perfect solution….You do what is doable and then you want to try and do a little bit more.

The Governor is not one who opposes swapping horses while crossing a stream. He will change a horse for a mule, a mule for a goat, and a goat for a shoat. If there is a mane or tail to which to cling, Franklin D. Roosevelt will not scorn to take hold so long as the beast is traveling in his direction.