Winston Churchill Quotes

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

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.

I would rather be an opportunist and float than go to the bottom with my principles around my neck.

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

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.

Let no one charge me with ever having abused or encouraged weakness or surrendered on matters of principle. But I have said, as I say again, that every trifle must not be dignified into a principle.

Ideology knows the answer before the question has been asked. Principles are something different: a set of values that have to be adapted to circumstances but not compromised away.

Principle is OK up to a certain point, but principle doesn't do any good if you lose.

The policy of adapting one's self to circumstances makes all ways smooth.

If by sticking to the moral principles you have followed all your life, you jeopardize your happiness and that of others, throw over your principles. Principles for principles' sake -that is not wisdom; that is obstinacy. Principles should be fluid because life is fluid.

You have to maintain your principles but have a broader appeal.

While we should never give up our principles, we must also realize that we cannot maintain our principles unless we survive.

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.

A little hypocrisy is better than losing.

I stick by my principles, and one of my principles is flexibility.

An ideologue believes that what is right will work. A pragmatist believes that what works is right.

You can compromise without violating your principles, but it is nearly impossible to compromise when you turn principles into ideology.

It is the misfortune of those who are concerned in conducting human affairs that, however pure and capacious their own conceptions may be, they must accommodate themselves to the circumstances with which they are environed and use the instruments that are within their reach.

Make your plans to fit the circumstances.

Be firm on principle but flexible on method.

Some people are pragmatists, taking things as they come and making the best of the choices available. Some people are idealists, standing for principle and refusing to compromise. And some people just act on any whim that enters their heads. I pragmatically turn my whims into principles.

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

One learns to itch where one can scratch.

In practice, such trifles as contradictions in principle are easily set aside; the faculty of ignoring them makes the practical man.

It's better to be burnished with use than rusty with principle.