Otto von Bismarck Quotes

A little hypocrisy is better than losing.

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

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.

You can’t set aside … values in the name of political expediency.

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

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

The hardest thing in life is to know when to hold fast to one’s principles and when it is acceptable to bend them.

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.

Idealism leads to realism if it is strictly thought out.

Never stand so high upon a principle that you cannot lower it to suit the circumstances.

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.

I've always said there is a boulevard that exists between compromising your principles and getting everything you want. Now, we should never compromise our principles. And I never have. Those are the things that people vote for you on, that's the core of who you are. But there's always a boulevard between that and getting everything you want.

What is right and what is practicable are two different things.

A statesman cannot afford to be a moralist.

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

One of the melancholy facts of political life is that your convictions tend to align with your paycheck.

Principles ... become modified in practice, by facts.

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

I never place myself mentally in the position of compromising principle and conscience. But there are times when I might harmonize differences in order to make progress, or maintain unity.

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

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

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

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

On Pragmatism: It's all very well in theory but it doesn't work in practice