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 don't see much use in general slogans. Sometimes it is worth resisting evil with lesser evil, very commonly in fact.
It is better to inconsistently save some lives than to consistently save none.
There is much said about the wickedness of doing evil that good may come. Alas! there is such a thing as doing good that evil may come.
The balancing of present wants against the future is really the central problem of ethics.
Those who won't accept evil never get anything good.
... the strictness of to-day may have at any moment to be purchased by the laxity of to-morrow.
I'll bet Shakespeare compromised himself a lot; anybody who's in the entertainment industry does to some extent.
There's a dilemma over how to balance concrete economic interests with critical opinions on the state of human rights. It's the human rights that suffer, and that's a great price to pay.
If there is one thing worse than the modern weakening of major morals, it is the modern strengthening of minor morals.
willing me to understand: that people should be sacrificed to causes, that beauty can be built on the backs of the dead.
A certain alloy of expediency improves the gold of morality and makes it wear all the longer.
