Not Compromising Yourself Quotes

Staying loyal to your journey means you never abandon yourself by compromising your integrity or discounting your intuition or the signals that come from your body - the knot in the gut, emotional detachment, or loss of energy that signals something is amiss. ~ Charlotte Kasl

Of course, in the reality of history, the Machiavellian view which glorifies the principle of violence has been able to dominate.Not the compromising conciliatory politics of humaneness, not the Erasmian, but rather the politics of vested power which firmly exploits every opportunity, politics in the sense of the "Principe," has determined the development of European history ever since. ~ Stefan Zweig

If you base your identity on having friends, being accepted, and being popular, you may find yourself compromising your standards or changing them every weekend to accommodate your friends. ~ Sean Covey

In most cases an act of unwelcome sex is no more bother than being vaccinated, so there's no point going on about it as if it werea fate worse than death. With skill and good manners you can avoid having to make the sacrifice, but should you find yourself in a compromising situation largely of your own making, you should stop defending your virtue and start worrying about your maturity. It will give you something to think about while the savage pumper bangs away. ~ Quentin Crisp

I worry the Christian community has accepted an insidious shift from laboring for others to prioritizing our own rights. We've perpetuated a group identity as misunderstood and persecuted, defending our positions and preferring to be right over being good news. We've bought the lie that connecting with people on their terms is somehow compromising, that our refusal to proclaim our moral ground from word one is a slippery slope. It has become more vital to protect our own station than advocate for a world that needs Jesus, who came to us, wrapped in our skin, speaking our language. If we were not too beneath Christ, who died for us while we were still sinners, then how dare we take a superior position over any other human being? How lovely is a faith community that goes forth as loving sisters and brothers rather than angry defenders and separatists. ~ Jen Hatmaker

Not compromising the music, but there is a way, by just showing the people that you're sincere and honest with what you're doing, and by talking to them. ~ Chuck Mangione

Without that discovery of the "moving photo," the world today would not be what it is: the new technology has become, primo, the principal agent of stupidity (incomparably more powerful than the bad literature of old: advertisements, television series); and secundo, the agent of worldwide indiscretion (cameras secretly filming political adversaries in compromising situations, immortalizing the pain of a half-naked woman laid out on a stretcher after a street bombing). It is true that film as art does also exist, but its significance is far more limited than that of film as technology, and its history is certainly shorter than that of any other art. ~ Milan Kundera

Sexual reproduction exists solely as a means to defeat parasites. By mixing male and female genes, sex produces offspring not exactly like either the male or female - making each generation different from the last, and presenting a moving target to intruders intent on compromising this system. ... Even with this variation, parasites continue to pose a threat ... and parasitism evolves and moves through any system - not just living things. The less variation there is in a system, the more readily parasites will evolve to infest it ... ~ Daniel Suarez

Children aren't only less inhibited than adults; they are also less powerful, and smaller too. They may or may not be more open-minded and liberated than grown-ups, but they are forced to live in a world that wasn't designed for them, and one that is not primarily concerned with their desires and their welfare. And so children are constantly compromising, constantly adjusting to an environment that is clearly not theirs, not yet. That's wisdom, not innocence. ~ Ian Bogost

-that unsleeping care which must have known that it could permit itself but one mistake; that alertness for measuring and weighing event against eventuality, circumstance against human nature, his own fallible judgement and mortal clay against not only human but natural forces, choosing and discarding, compromising with his dream and his ambition like you must with the horse which you take across country, over timber, which you control only through your ability to keep the animal from realizing that actually you cannot, that actually it is the stronger. ~ William Faulkner

Sara and I are both leaving within the hour. In my carriage."
"Together?" Lily looked startled, and then shook her head. "You can't. Don't you realize what people would say when they discovered that both of you were gone?"
"Nothing they haven't said already." He slid a proprietary arm around Sara's shoulders.
Lily drew her slight frame up as tall as possible, adopting the brisk tone of a chaperone defending her charge. "Where are you planning to go?"
Derek smiled slowly. "None of your damn business, gypsy." Ignoring Lily's sputtering protests, he stared down at his fiancée and raised his brows mockingly.
As she met his glinting green eyes, Sara realized he intended to take her to London and keep her with him for the night. Her nerves jangled with alarm. "I'm not certain it's advisable-" she began diplomatically, but he cut her off.
"Go pack your things."
Oh, the arrogance. But it was part of why she loved him, his single-minded determination to get what he wanted. Only blind, bullying stubbornness had enabled him to climb from the gutter. Now that the prospect of marrying her was within his reach, he planned to ensure it by well and truly compromising her. After tonight there would be no turning back. Sara stared at the broad expanse of his chest, conscious of the weight of his arm across her shoulders, the gentle stroke of his thumb and forefinger against her neck. Well... reprehensible as it was, she wanted the same thing.
"Derek," Li ~ Lisa Kleypas

True. I love you, Maddy."
No matter how many times he says it, I can't hear it enough. It doesn't freak me out, and the idea of being with him forever doesn't make me antsy. I crave him, more than I've ever craved anyone or anything in my life. I always used to think relationships meant compromising what you want for something somebody else wants, but I never realized that when you meet that one person who becomes your priority it's not compromising because you'd willingly do
anything to make them happy. Just like I know Damon would do the same for me.
I kiss him again. "You remember when we first met and I told you I felt like I don't belong?"
Damon nods.
"I found it - where I'm supposed to be. It's with you. ~ Eden Finley

Design isn't about getting your way, it's not about being a great genius or auteur who is followed by everyone else on the team, and it's not even about doing a great job of communicating your vision to the rest of the team. Design isn't about you; it is about the project. Working as a game designer is about collaborating with the rest of the team, compromising, and above all listening. ~ Jeremy Gibson

Izzy, are you - " he began. His eyes flew wide, and he backed up fast enough to smack his head into the wall behind him. "What is he doing here?"
Isabelle tugged her tank top back down and glared at her brother. "You don't knock now?"
"It - It's my bedroom!" Alec spluttered. He seemed to be deliberately trying not to look at Izzy and Simon, who were indeed in a very compromising position. Simon rolled quickly off Isabelle, who sat up, brushing herself off as if for lint. Simon sat up more slowly, trying to hold the torn edges of his shirt together. "Why are all my clothes on the floor?" Alec said.
"I was trying to find something for Simon to wear," Isabelle explained. "Maureen put him in leather pants and a puffy shirt because he was being her romance-novel slave."
"He was being her what?"
"Her romance-novel slave," Isabelle repeated, as if Alec were being particularly dense.
Alec shook his head as if he were having a bad dream. "You know what? Don't explain. Just - put your clothes on, both of you. ~ Cassandra Clare

Where I did feel a difference is learning to just work in a different way so that your resources are not completely depleted so that you don't have anything to give to your child when you go home, and fortunately I've been working long enough that I know how to make that shift so that I don't compromise my work or compromise my relationships; not compromising parenting is really the biggest difference. ~ Laura Linney

There's no reason not to be in television now. You get to live at home and you're not on the road all the time, they pay you decent money, and the writing's good. You're not compromising for it, you know. ~ Colm Meaney

Over, under, around, or through, there's always a way. You don't give up and you never give in. They can scar your body and take your freedom, but only you can surrender your heart and soul. Nothing is worth compromising yourself for. Stand fast and stand true. Always. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

She wasn't getting it. They never teased her. They never followed her around with their phones, trying to catch her in a compromising position. They never called her a ho-bag or a troll or said she danced like an elephant on crank. They never, not once, dribbled pee in her ballet bag or stuck shaved pubes in her ChapStick. They never told her she wouldn't ever be good enough to make the New York City Ballet, and that they'd wave to her from the stage, maybe, one day, if they remembered who she was when they were famous. ~ Nova Ren Suma

The wisdom of God devised a way for the love of God to deliver sinners from the wrath of God while not compromising the righteousness of God. ~ John Piper

The secret to battling cancer, then, is to find means to prevent these mutations from occurring in susceptible cells, or to find means to eliminate the mutated cells without compromising normal growth. The conciseness of that statement belies the enormity of the task. Malignant growth and normal growth are so genetically intertwined that unbraiding the two might be one of the most significant scientific challenges faced by our species. Cancer is built into our genomes: the genes that unmoor normal cell division are not foreign to our bodies, but rather mutated, distorted versions of the very genes that perform vital cellular functions. And cancer is imprinted in our society: as we extend our life span as a species, we inevitably unleash malignant growth (mutations in cancer genes accumulate with aging; cancer is thus intrinsically related to age). If we seek immortality, then so, too, in a rather perverse sense, does the cancer cell. ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee

When you have to start compromising yourself and your morals for the people around you, it's probably time to change the people around you. ~ John Spence

Why?"
He sauntered towards her. "Why, what?"
"Why are you here?"
He sighed. "Well, I think everyone goes through a time in their lives when they ask that same question. It's brave of you to finally step outside of yourself and- ~ Rachel Van Dyken

I'm not compromising myself in any way, I love just doing whatever I want and showing people it's real. ~ Big Sean

I have often been asked why I maintained such a non-compromising antagonism to government and in what way I have found myself oppressed by it. In my opinion every individual is hampered by it. It exacts taxes from production. It creates tariffs, which prevent free exchange. It stands ever for the status quo and traditional conduct and belief. It comes into private lives and into most intimate personal relations, enabling the superstitious, puritanical, and distorted ones to impose their ignorant prejudice and moral servitudes upon the sensitive, the imaginative, and the free spirits. Government does this by its divorce laws, its moral censorships, and by a thousand petty persecutions of those who are too honest to wear the moral mask of respectability. In addition, government protects the strong at the expense of the weak, provides courts and laws which the rich may scorn and the poor must obey. It enables the predatory rich to make wars to provide foreign markets for the favored ones, with prosperity for the rulers and wholesale death for the ruled. However, it is not only government in the sense of the state which is destructive of every individual value and quality. It is the whole complex of authority and institutional domination which strangles life. It is the superstition, myth, pretense, evasions, and subservience which support authority and institutional domination. It is the reverence for these institutions instilled in the school, the church and the home in order th ~ Emma Goldman

I'd long since learned that no difference in viewpoint should ever be allowed to cause the least break in love. Indeed, it cannot, if it's real love.
... But relationships can be kept intact without compromising one's own beliefs. And if we do not keep them intact, but give up and allow the chasm, we're breaking the second greatest commandment. ~ Catherine Marshall

Social and economic well-being will become a reality only through the zeal, courage, the non-compromising determination of intelligent minorities, and not through the mass. ~ Emma Goldman

It is important to realize that the Social Nurturance metaphor and the Moral Nurturance metaphor may sometimes contradict each other, even though they form a natural pairing. This occurs when you have to maintain social ties with people in your community who do not believe in or operate by the Moral Nurturance metaphor. Compromising with such people for the sake of maintaining social ties may require compromising on moral nurturance. M ~ George Lakoff

Whenever you experience stress of any kind, look into yourself and ask, In what way am I compromising my innermost values in this situation? ~ Stephen Covey

Am I right in thinking you're deliberately keeping me here?"
Mikhail shrugged his broad shoulders. "Yes and no. I do not want to force you against your will, but as to my wanting you to stay, I believe us to be lifemates, bound more irrevocably than by your marriage ceremony. I would be extremely uncomfortable without you here, both in body and mind. I do not know how I would react to your contact with another man, and quite frankly, I fear it."
"We really are from two different worlds, aren't we?" she asked sadly.
He brought her hand to the warmth of his mouth. "There is such a thing as compromise, little one. We can move between the two worlds or create our own."
Her blue eyes slid over him, a faint smile touching her mouth. "That sounds so good, Mikhail, so twentieth-first century, but somehow I think it's more likely I would be the one compromising."
With his strange Old World courtesy, Mikhail held up a branch for her to pass beneath. The path was a large oval leading back to his home. "Perhaps you are right"--male amusement again--"but then, it has always been my nature to control and protect. I have no doubt you are more than a match for me."
"Then why are we back at your house instead of at the inn?" she asked, one hand on her hip and a smile dancing in her blue eyes.
"What would you do there so late at night, anyway?" His voice was pure velvet, more enticing than ever. "Stay with me tonight. You can read while I work, and I will tea ~ Christine Feehan

She bent down and reached around his trim waist to grab the handcuffs. A bit of a compromising position, given the state of her thoughts, but she had to help the poor guy out before his nose froze off. "There's a saying here in Switzerland. To be a fool at the right time is an art." She caught his eye before continuing with the knot. "You better hush, now."
"Well, there's a saying in the US, too. Imagination is worse than the truth. I have a real vivid imagination, and you bent over me like this is not helping. ~ Melinda Dozier

They're a slow-moving lot, reporters. Slothlike. Weighed down by all that righteous indignation about the freedom of the press and the public's right to know, not to mention the liquid lunches they see as their constant due. Go out now and you're playing right into their grasping, ink-stained hands." He cocked an ear to the door. "I'm doing my best to protect your reputation here. It wouldn't do to have a serving wench caught in a compromising position with the lord of the manor."
"You don't have the cleavage to make a good serving wench, Eli. ~ Kate Meader

She moved to push past him. When he did not move, she stopped, unwilling to touch him.
A pity. The memory of the warmth of her gloved hand on his cold cheek flashed. Apparently her behavior outside had been the product of surprise.
And pleasure.
He wondered what else he might do instinctively in response to pleasure. An image flashed- blond hair spread wide across dark, silken sheets, ice blue eyes alight with surprise as he gave prim, proper Penelope a glimpse of dark and heady pleasure.
He'd nearly kissed her in the darkness. It had started out as a way to intimidate her, to begin the systematic compromising of quiet, unassuming, Penelope Marbury. But he did not deny that as they stood in his barren kitchen, he wondered what she would taste like. How her breath would sound fluttering across his skin. How she would feel against him. Around him. ~ Sarah MacLean

In everyday life, if people intend to reach a true assessment of someone, to decide whether he is bad or good, they do not base the investigation on those periods of his life when he was untroubled by external circumstances; they look at how he behaved when he was afflicted by misfortune or blessed by success, because they think that the only way to tell whether a man is fully qualified is to see whether or not he is capable of enduring total changes of fortune with courage and without compromising his principles. This is how one should examine a system of government as well... ~ Polybius

I've done loads of collaborations and I'm never totally happy with the outcome because it feels like you're compromising something of yourself in it. ~ Hudson Mohawke

It's not that I didn't love myself before. Sometimes we don't realize that we are compromising ourselves. To understand that a person is not good for you, or that that person is not treating you in the right way, or that he is not doing the right thing for himself - if I stay, then I am not doing the right thing for me. I love myself enough to walk away from that now. ~ Jennifer Lopez

I think the key to success is vision that adjusts on the way, but doesn't at all falter. It's about not compromising and following your gut to a certain degree, based on knowledge, instinct, etc. And not listening to the naysayers ... You develop strength through adversity. You have to keep moving towards your goal through huge obstacles. ~ Millard Drexler

The most effective leaders are not motivated by a desire to control events or to be in the spotlight. They are motivated by the desire to advance ideas and new ways of looking at the world, or to improve the situation of a group of people. These motivations belong to introverts and extroverts alike. You can achieve these same goals - you can be inspiring and motivational - without compromising your quiet ways. ~ Susan Cain

Aren't we at the point where the closer we get to chaos, the more concern that there should be about coming to the table and compromising with Democrats? This is not leadership. This is almost like dictatorship. ~ Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Try to find your individuality, your integrity, and make the effort of not compromising. Because the more you compromise, the less you are an individual. You are only a cog in the wheel, just a part in the vast mechanism, just a small part of the mob - not an individual in your own beauty, in your own right. I am absolutely against compromise. Death is far more beautiful than a life of compromise. ~ Rajneesh

I must firmly adhere to the views I have held and practice, that Socialism to succeed must be practical, tolerant, cohesive and consciously compromising with Progressive forces running, if not so far, in parallel lines towards its own goal. ~ John Burns

Love is not compromising your core values for someone else's. Love brings up your Highest Self. ~ Cloris Kylie

But my question is, am I compromising by adapting my words for the audience and where is the line beyond which I am not adapting words, but changing my position? ~ Joichi Ito

Ideas at first considered outrageous or ridiculous or extreme gradually become what people think they've always believed. How the transformation happened is rarely remembered, in part because it's compromising: it recalls the mainstream when the mainstream was, say, rabidly homophobic or racist in a way it no longer is; and it recalls that power comes from the shadows and the margins, that our hope is in the dark around the edges, not the limelight of center stage. Our hope and often our power. ~ Rebecca Solnit

In Soledad state prison, I fell in with a group of young blacks who, like myself, were in vociferous rebellion against what we perceived as a continuation of slavery on a higher plane. We cursed everything American---including baseball and hot dogs. All respect we may have had for politicians, preachers, lawyers, governors, Presidents, congressmen was utterly destroyed as we watched them temporizing and compromising over right and wrong, over legality and illegality, over constitutionality and unconstitutionality. We knew that in the end what they were clashing over was us, what to do with the blacks, and whether or not to start treating us as human beings. I despised all of them. ~ Eldridge Cleaver

There's been a load of compromising, on the road to my horizon, but I'm gonna be where the lights are shining on me. ~ Glen Campbell

The best way ah knew tae strike a chord without compromising too much tae the sickening hypocrisy, perversely peddled as decency, which fills the room, is tae stick tae the clichés. ~ Irvine Welsh