Bill Watterson Quotes

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.

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

Of course I would love to battle for victories and be up the front but it's always about where can you be, what are your alternatives.

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

...never let a passion for the perfect take precedence over pragmatism.

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

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

Theoretical principals must sometimes give way for the sake of practical advantages.

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

Persistence in one opinion has never been considered a merit in political leaders.

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

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

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

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

Intuitive versus analytical? That's a foolish choice. It's foolish, just like trying to choose between being realistic or idealistic. You need both in life.

I don't like compromise. In politics, you have to always choose a compromise, and sometimes, that, I don't like.

If you have a choice of two things and can't decide, take both.

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.

That has been my entire life story. Running against the current and running with the current. Sometimes running with the current is underestimated. The acceptance of certain realities doesn’t preclude idealism. It can lead to certain breakthroughs.

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

When it's impossible, it's better to stoop to compromise, without resisting and without complaining. People who complain are selfish.

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

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.

Sometimes I decide not to make something because I am proud and think I am better than that - and then I realise I have to pay the rent and I have to take something which is even worse than all the other stuff they offer you because you were being so proud not to take it! But you adjust and sometimes for one reason or another there is no strategy at the end but there is the ability to do the best that you can with what you have.