John le Carre Quotes

What's distinctively shocking about Machiavelli is that he didn't care. He believed not only that politicians must do evil in the name of the public good, but also that they shouldn't worry about it. He was unconcerned, in other words, with what modern thinkers call 'the problem of dirty hands.'

If the end does not justify the means, what does?

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

As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy.

The 'morality of compromise' sounds contradictory. Compromise is usually a sign of weakness, or an admission of defeat. Strong men don't compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised.

The end must justify the means.

The problem with absolutist beliefs that they can get you into traps in which the ends justify the means.

We ought to see clearly that the end does justify the means

Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometime's by action dignified

The ends justifies the means.

You can get away with anything as long as it works.

Greatness is not manifested by unlimited pragmatism, which places such a high premium on the end justifying any means and any methods.

The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces.

The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.

Calculated risks of abuse are taken in order to preserve higher values.

Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong.

It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good.

I'm a Utilitarian, so I don't see the rule against lying as absolute; it's always subject to some overriding utility which may prevent its exercise.

Sometimes the right thing gets done for the wrong reason and sometimes, unfortunately, the wrong thing gets done for the right reason.

It seems that if you put people on paper and move them through time, you cannot help but talk about ethics, because the ethical realm exists nowhere if not here: in the consequences of human actions as they unfold in time, and the multiple interpretive possibility of those actions.

Everybody is a hypocrite. You can't live on this planet without being a hypocrite.

One must be especially wary of an Administration that seems to feel that what it judges to be a good end, always justifies any means.

A little hypocrisy is better than losing.

He [William Gladstone] made his conscience not his guide but his accomplice.

The ideologue says “whatever is right works.” The pragmatist says “whatever works is right.”