Expedience Quotes

• There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel.

  Vladimir Lenin

  Justice, Political, Atheism

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• When virtue is lost, benevolence appears, when benevolence is lost right conduct appears, when right conduct is lost, expedience appears. Expediency is the mere shadow of right and truth; it is the beginning of disorder.

  Laozi

  Inspirational, Deep Life, Honor

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• I give dignity second place to expedience.

  Jack Vance

  Giving, Dignity, Second Place

  Jack Vance (1998). “The complete dying earth”

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• The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.

  Edmund Burke

  Liberty, Libertarian, Internet

  Edmund Burke (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)”, p.3631, Delphi Classics

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• The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Funny, Truth, Consistency

  Civil Disobedience (1849)

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• The law is simply expediency wearing a long white dress.

  Quentin Crisp

  Funny, Humor, Law

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• No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expedience.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Life, Men, Evil

  In Works, Memorial edition (1925) vol. 15, p. 388 "Latitude and Longitude among Reformers"

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• The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Principles, Useful Things, Expediency

  Circle (1921) act 3

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• More often there's a compromise between ethics and expediency.

  Peter Singer

  Ethics, Compromise, Expediency

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  There must be no compromise with slavery - none whatever. Nothing is gained, everything is lost, by subordinating principle to expedience.

  William Lloyd Garrison

  Wisdom, Principles, Slavery

  William Lloyd Garrison (1852). “Selections from the writings and speeches of William Lloyd Garrison: With an appendix ...”, p.140

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• Justice, not expedience, must be the guiding light. The orator must fix his eye on the polestar of justice, and plough straight thither. The moment he glances toward expediency, he falls from his high estate.

  John Peter Altgeld

  Fall, Eye, Light

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• Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake.

  Barack Obama

  Father, Men, Rights

  First Presidential Inaugural Address, Delivered 20 January 2009

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• If, in our haste to 'progress,' the economics of ecology are disregarded by citizens and policy makers alike, the result will be an ugly America. We cannot afford an America where expedience tramples upon esthetics and development decisions are made with an eye only on the present.

  Stewart Udall

  Eye, America, Decision

  Stewart L. Udall (1988). “The quiet crisis and the next generation”, Gibbs Smith

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• On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question, is it right? There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Life, Courage, Time

  "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution". Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Speech in Washington, D.C., kinginstitute.stanford.edu. March 31, 1968.

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• Expedience, not justice, is the rule of contemporary American law.

  Abbie Hoffman

  Law, Justice, Contemporary

  Abbie Hoffman (1982). “Square Dancing in the Ice Age”, p.218, South End Press

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• It is the curse of minorities in this power-worshipping world that either from fear or from an uncertain policy of expedience they distrust their own standards and hesitate to give voice to their deeper convictions, submitting supinely to estimates and characterizations of themselves as handed down by a not unprejudiced dominant majority.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Voice, Giving, Majority

  Anna Julia Cooper (1988). “A Voice From the South”, p.43, Oxford University Press

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• Holocausts do not amaze me. Rapes and child slavery do not amaze me. And Franklin, I know you feel otherwise, but Kevin does not amaze me. I am amazed when I drop a glove in the street and a teenager runs two blocks to return it. I am amazed when a checkout girl flashes me a wide smile with my change, though my own face had been a mask of expedience. Lost wallets posted to their owners, strangers who furnish meticulous directions, neighbors who water each other's houseplants - these things amaze me.

  Lionel Shriver

  Girl, Running, Children

  Lionel Shriver (2010). “We Need to Talk about Kevin”, p.250, Profile Books

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