quotations and passages on compromise

Compromise makes a good
umbrella, but a poor roof.

James Russell Lowell

A note: There is the type of compromise that allows us to accept other people's thoughts
and ideas, and not put our own ideas higher than theirs, and there's the kind of compromise
that lessens us as people when we do things that we know are wrong, simply for the sake
of expediency or personal gain. We present quotations addressing both sorts here.

The middle path makes me wary. . . . But in the middle of my life, I am coming to see the middle path as a walk with wisdom where conversations of complexity can be found, that the middle path is the path of movement. . . . In the right and left worlds, the stories are largely set. . . . We become missionaries for a position . . . practitioners of the missionary position. Variety is lost. Diversity is lost. Creativity is lost in our inability to make love with the world. Terry Tempest Williams Leap

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter. Edmund Burke

Compromise--better bend than break. Scottish Proverb

In what we call "real life"--if you want to be successful, if you want to get on in the long term--you always have to come to some kind of compromise with your own emotions: I can't overreact NOW! I have to accept THIS! I have to ignore THAT!--You're forever having to tailor your emotions to the circumstances, you go easy on the people you love, you slip into your hundred little daily roles, you juggle, you balance, you weigh things up so as not to jeopardize the entire structure, because you yourself have a stake in it. Daniel Glattauer Gut gegen Nordwind

In a nourishing relationship, compromise is a foregone conclusion.

Jerry Greenwald

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Peace is a two- way road of conflict and compromise.

Ronald Thomas

Compromise, if not the spice of life, is its solidity.
It is what makes nations great and marriages happy.

Phyllis McGinley

Franklin may . . . be considered one of the founding fathers
of American democracy, since no democratic government
can last long without conciliation and compromise.

Samuel Eliot Morison

Sometimes compromise is important. Sometimes it's better
to give in to someone else's wishes in order to have fun as a
group or as a couple, or for the benefit of the team. Sometimes
compromise is dangerous. We need to guard against compromising
our standards to gain the approval or love of someone else.
Decide when you can, and when you cannot, compromise. If it's
not harmful and you are ambivalent about a decision, then compromise.
If it could lead to breaking your values, compromise isn't a good idea.

Melody Beattie

People talk about the middle of the road as though it were unacceptable.
Actually, all human problems, excepting morals, come into the gray areas.
Things are not all black and white. There have to be compromises.
The middle of the road is all of the usable surface.
The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

Samuel Johnson

It is through our extended family that we first learn to compromise and
come to an understanding that even if we don't always agree
about things we can still love and look out for each other.

Sara Sheridan

“I wish," he said, "I had known at eighteen what I know now--that
there are some things on which one does not compromise."

Mary Balogh
Simply Perfect

It's rather astonishing to see just how few quotations are out there that give a positive slant to the concept of compromise. Most of the words we've found about compromise treat the idea as almost evil, as if we lose our humanity as soon as we even consider compromise. If we compromise, people say, we're settling for less than we deserve or we're showing weakness by not being willing to push to get exactly what we want.

This seems to be a dangerous trend in the minds of our young people, who are being taught to be intolerant of anything except what they want. We read story after story about teens who feel they deserve the very best of everything, and who are unwilling to compromise and accept anything but exactly what they want. They seem to be taking lessons from people like Elbert Hubbard, who said, "It is the weak man who urges compromise--never the strong man."

What a crock. Some of the strongest people in the world have been masters of compromise. Mother Teresa, Mikhael Gorbachev and Nelson Mandela come to mind.

Compromise shows a willingness to try to understand that there are other options available other than the ones we've originally considered. It's a willingness to consider the validity of other people's perspectives, to consider the possibility that someone else may have a better idea than we do. If I "back down" and agree to see the movie my wife wants to see instead of the one I originally wanted to see, what have I lost? Absolutely nothing, and my willingness to compromise has more than likely helped our relationship. It's certainly helped me to feel more peace of mind.

There are some things that we never should compromise, especially our ethics and our values. But such a compromise means that we're making a decision to do something that directly contradicts what we know to be ethical. Compromise can be one of the most powerful tools available to us in our quest to lead a full life, as long as we can learn to recognize when compromise is appropriate. Compromise means that our happiness isn't tied to a certain outcome or course of action, which frees us up to be ourselves, and to let others in our lives be themselves, too.

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I can accept anything, except what seems to be the easiest for most
people: the half-way, the almost, the just-about, the in-between.

Ayn Rand

Do not compromise yourself and put your goodness in the same
impermanent category as whatever circumstance happening.
Be the best you in every circumstance.

Steve Maraboli

The compromise will always be more expensive
than either of the suggestions it is compromising.

Arthur Bloch

Compromise is but the sacrifice of one right or good in the
hope of retaining another--too often ending in the loss of both.

Tryon Edwards

Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof. It is temporary
expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure
to be unwise in statesmanship.

James Russell Lowell

Being a successful couple was learning what you were willing to compromise
on, and what you weren't; learning when to stand your ground, and when to
give it up; what was truly important enough to fight over, and what was just
you being pissy. You learned each other's hot buttons, the places that hurt,
or angered, when you pressed them. Love makes you learn where all the
pitfalls are, and how to avoid them, or how to set them off.

Laurell K. Hamilton
Kiss the Dead

Marriage is about compromise; it's about doing something for
the other person, even when you don't want to.

Nicholas Sparks
The Wedding

Compromise, while at times morally necessary or at least justifiable, is
more often only the first permission for a person (or society)
to begin a long downhill descent.

Dennis Prager
Think a Second Time