Thomas Jefferson Quotes

When you choose the lesser of two evils, always remember that it is still an evil.

If you are strong and fighting the weak, then if you kill your opponent, then you are a scoundrel... if you let him kill you, then you are an idiot. So here is a dilemma which others have suffered before us, and for which as far as I can see, there is simply no escape.

You can and you can't You will and you won't You'll be damned if you do You'll be damned if you don't

It is the fact of life that a truth emerges out of a conflict between two wrongs.

predicament, n. The wage of consistency.

Life is a constant oscillation between the sharp horns of dilemmas.

Tragedy, for me, is not a conflict between right and wrong, but between two different kinds of right.

The hardest decisions in life are not between good and bad or right and wrong, but between two goods or two rights.

The great danger to our general government is the great southern and northern interests of the continent being opposed to each other. [The states are] divided into different interests not by their difference in size ... but principally from their having or not having slaves.

One’s right cancels out another’s right.

The best war is when you can hate both sides.

Truth stood on one side and Ease on the other; it has often been so.

Oh, but Masha, can’t you see? You are. An Ivan has come. That is like saying, Midnight has struck. It is time for bed, little one. You cannot have both. In war you must always choose sides. One or the other. Silver or black. Human or demon. If you try to be a bridge laid down between them, they will tear you in half.

Everyone spends their lives trying to balance their world between good and evil.

You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.

It is clear to me that people often want incompatible things. They want danger and excitement on the one hand, and safety and security on the other, and often simultaneously. Contradictory desires mean that life can never be wholly satisfying or without frustration.

Justice in the extreme is often unjust.

Love has its place, as does hate. Peace has its place, as does war. Mercy has its place, as do cruelty and revenge.

What's called a difficult decision is a difficult decision because either way you go there are penalties.

Between two evils, choose neither; between two goods, choose both.

Aristotle said time is a measure of change, and this movie is about changing in time, through time, while remaining the same person. That's a philosophical paradox and a moral dilemma. But 'Casablanca' says it's possible. You can have both. That's what it means. And that's my wish for you: that you would have both.

Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil.

I think people have to choose between living with contradictions or painting themselves into a corner. I have a lot of contradictions.

The petitioner's problem is to avoid Scylla without being drawn into Charybdis.

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