Jean Chretien Quotes

A result of accommodation and compromise cannot be supposed perfectly to coincide with any one’s idea of perfection.

You can't be the perfect member of Congress and the perfect mother 100 percent of the time. And probably, you'd be a pretty annoying person if you were.

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

You don't compromise principles, but you harmonize tactics to preserve unity.

There's no such thing as a perfect play. Sometimes you have to protect the life of the play.

The best is the enemy of the good.

I don't want to abandon one work for the other, and I don't think I need to sacrifice anything to put my all into either one of them.

There are always great dangers in letting the best be the enemy of the good.

We do not have to make it perfect; we just have to do as best we can.

The right must ... yield to the expedient.

All legislation is founded upon the principle of mutual concession.

The best is the enemy of the good enough.

Strong men know when to compromise.

If you can’t learn to compromise an issue without compromising yourself then you better not be a legislator and you better not marry.

Compromise today is too often applauded simply for itself. The cost of compromise to principles and real lives doesn't seem to matter.

He [Theodore Roosevelt] acted upon the maxim that half a loaf is better than no bread. I believe that half a loaf is fatal whenever it is accepted at the sacrifice of the basic principle sought to be attained.... A half-way measure never fairly tests the principle and many utterly discredit it.

Becoming a mom forced me to re-prioritize and make room for the things that are most important, while recognizing that there are things I can let go of, and the world won't crumble around me.

It's good to step out of the box, but don't step out so far that you can't get back in.

There's one rule that I have on my movies, which is that anything that you want to do, you can do. But! There's a flip side to that, which is that anything I want you to do, give it a try also.

There's this idea that you can have it all, but in my opinion, you can't - not if you're a perfectionist.

I just don't believe you can have it all and be great at everything, something has to give at some point. You've got to give yourself a break sometimes.

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

I believe that creativity comes from compromise. If you could have everything you ever wanted, it doesn't always work.

If it were better, it wouldn't be as good.

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.